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STONINGTON 
BY THE SEA 



BY 



HENRY ROBINSON PALMER 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




STONINGTON, CONNECTICUT 

PALMER PRESS 

1913 



Fio4- 



COPYRIGHT BY HENRY ROBINSON PALMER, 1913 
PUBLISHED JANUARY, 1913 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

THE COUNTRY BY THE SEA 

A BOOK OF VERSE 

ONE DOLLAR POSTPAID 

PALMER PRESS, STONINGTON, CONN. 



/, o 

(£:C' A330979 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Water Street in Summer 


FACING PAGE 1 ^ 


Town Clock . 


PAGE 6 y 


Custom House 


. 8 ^ 


Pequot Country, (map) . 


. FACING PAGE 9 ' 


Point from Breakwater . 


. 9- 


SOUTHERTOWN, (mAp) . 


PAGE 15 !/ 


Main Street in Summer . 


. FACING PAGE 24 >^ 


Stonington Lighthouse . 


. 32^ 


Stonington Free Library 


. 32 


Cannons of 1814 , 


. 40 


British Bombshells 


. 40 


Little Narragansett Bay 


. 48 


Harbor 


. 48 


Stonington Borough in 1837 


. 56 


PoMEROY House 


. 64 


Doorway of John F. Trumbuli 


. House . .64 


Two Old Houses on Main Stri 


:et . . . 72 


Ephraim Williams Homestead 


. 72 


Congregational Parsonage 


. 80 


Home of Miss C. A. Smith 


. 80 


"The Hill". 


. 88 


Lower Main Street 


. 88 


Broad Street in October 


. 96 


Home of C. N. Wayland 


. 104 


Wadawanuck House 


. 104 


Railroad Docks and Yard 


. 108 



1 - ,^. 



rO 



^kw^^^Mk^ 




The Custom House 



H 77 78 



PREFACE 

This little volume has been compiled for the purpose 
of providing a convenient and inexpensive history of 
Stonington — particularly that part of the town that is 
within or adjacent to the boundaries of Stonington 
Borough. 

No attempt has been made to rival the larger works 
that deal with the history of the town. Anyone who 
wishes to know more of the subject than could be com- 
pressed within the restricted pages of this book will 
find it extensively treated in the late Judge Richard 
A. Wheeler's excellent history and genealogy, and in 
the attractive volume, "Homes of Our Ancestors, " by 
his daughter, Miss Grace D. Wheeler. 

I make grateful acknowledgments to these two books, 
as well as to Judge Wheeler's earlier article on Ston- 
ington in the History of New London County, the late 
J. Hammond Trumbull's brochure on the Battle of 
Stonington (a rare book, a copy of which is in the pos- 
session of the Stonington Free Library), and various 
other sources too many to mention. 

I wish also to record my obligations to the late Hon- 
orable Ephraim Williams of Stonington and William 
C. Stanton of Westerly, who furnished me with many 
interesting facts concerning the early history of the 



4 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

community, and to the writers under whose names the 
four chapters in this volume on "Whaling and Seal- 
ing," "In the 'Fifties,'" "Society 'Before the 
War,' " and "Whistler in Stonington" are printed. 

Much of the earlier part of the book is based upon 
an article I contributed to the New England Magazine 
in 1899, just two hundred and fifty years after the first 
settlement of the town at the head waters of Wequete- 
quock Cove. 

If any special merit may be claimed for the 
work it is that of conciseness and the bringing together, 
in handy form, of many facts about Stonington by 
the Sea that cannot be found elsewhere within a 
single volume. 

H. R. P. 

January, 1913 



CONTENTS 

I. The Beginnings of the Town . . 9 

II. The Settlement of Long Point . ,18 

III. A Meeting House Lottery . . .24 

IV. The First British Attack . . .29 
V. The Second British Attack . . .34 

VI. Notes on the Second Attack . . 45 

VII. Stonington in 1819 . . . .50 

VIII. Whaling and Sealing . . . .53 

James H. Weeks 

IX. In the "Fifties" . , . . .64 

George D. Stanton 

X. Society "Before the War" . . 69 
Emma W. Palmer 

XI. Whistler in Stonington . . .75 

RiETA B. Palmer 

XII. Three Disastrous Fires . . .80 
XIII. Stonington Newspapers . . .85 

XIV. The Discovery of Antarctica . . 88 

XV. Fanning' s Voyages . . . .92 
XVI. Tales and Traditions . . . .96 

XVII. Stonington To-Day . . . .102 




The Town Clock 




The Pequot Country 

(From an old Dutch map) 





SioMNcMox Point iro.m the Breakwater 



STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

CHAPTER I 

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE TOWN 

Before the white man established himself in New 
England, the warlike tribe of Pequots dominated the 
region between the Thames and Pawcatuck rivers. 
They had come from the headwaters of the Hudson, 
sweeping aci'oss Connecticut despite the opposition of 
the local Indians, and cutting in two the mild Niantics, 
who occupied the shores of Fisher's Island sound. 
One division of the Niantics was pressed to the east, 
the other to the west, and comfortably between them 
down sat the Pequots to enjoy the well-stocked hunt- 
ing and fishing grounds the dispossessed tribe had 
loved. 

The Pequots could muster nearly four thousand war- 
riors if need arose. They added Fisher's Island to 
their undisputed domain, and went on hostile enter- 
prises as far as Block Island and Montauk. In 1 632 
— five years before their own tragic overthrow — they 
met the Narragansetts of Rhode Island in battle and 
drove them to the eastward, extending their land- 
ed claims ten miles beyond the Pawcatuck. It was 
partly in revenge for this that the Narragansetts in 



10 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

1637 rallied to the call of the colonies and assisted 
Captain John Mason in the overthrow of the Pequots 
at their lofty fort on the west bank of the Mystic riv- 
er. The slaughter was complete — scarcely any of the 
savage Pequots survived the indiscriminate musket fire 
and ruthless burning of their palisaded tents and huts. 
Against the ball and powder of the whites the redskins 
could make no effective stand, though thirty years lat- 
er, when the Narragansetts were cornered in the Great 
Swamp Fight at Kingston, they were able, because of 
the muskets the}" had managed to acquire, to inflict a 
loss of thirty or fort}' slain upon the colonial troops. 

The Pequots, in pushing their boundaries ten miles 
east of the Pawcatuck in 1632, laid the foundations 
for a border dispute that disturbed the relations of the 
settlers of Connecticut and Rhode Island for eighty 
years. The traces of this dispute and the prejudices 
to which it gave rise are perhaps observable to the 
present day. 

The Dutch explored the southern coast of New Eng- 
land before the English came. Adrian Block set sail 
from New Amsterdam in the year 1614 in the Rest- 
less, a vessel forty-four feet in length which had been 
built on the shores of the Hudson, and voyaged leis- 
urely along the Connecticut coast, taking time to ex- 
amine the rivers and harbors, and giving them names 
that have long since disappeared and been forgotten. 
The English came a few years later and gave a new 
set of names to the region, and these names, like the 
English language and theory of govei*nment, have sur- 



BEGINNINGS OF THE TOWN 11 

vived. Captain Block, however, left Dutch names on 
two islands that still bear them — his own he gave to 
Manisses or Block Island, which however has the Eng- 
lish name of New Shoreham as its corporate designa- 
tion, and upon the beautiful nearer island, now unfor- 
tunately part of the state of New York, which stretch- 
es its graceful hills and beaches within three miles of 
Stonington he bestowed the name of Visscher, or Fish- 
er, one of his crew. 

Captain Block sailed past Stonington, and possibly 
anchored in Stonington harbor. He cruised through 
Little Narragansett bay and up the Pawcatuck river, 
to which he gave the name of Oester riviertjen — East 
river. "Within the Great Bay "(Long Island sound), 
a Dutch historian of the time wrote, "there lies a 
point in the shape of a sickle, behind which there is a 
small stream or inlet, which was called by our people 
East river, since it extends toward the east." 

Fate, however, had reserved this region for the 
English. Eight years after the destruction of the Pe- 
quot power, the younger John Winthrop came from 
Boston and began the settlement of Faire Harbour or 
New London, on the west bank of the Thames ; and 
among those whom he invited to join him in the en- 
terprise was William Chesebrough of Rehoboth in the 
colony of Plymouth. Chesebrough visited the site, 
did not care for it, and set out across country for 
home. At Wequetequock, in the present town of 
Stonington, he found a pleasant valley, with a pictur- 
esque salt-water cove, and here he determined to set- 



12 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

tie. In the spring of 16-19 he brought his family 
from Rehoboth, and thus the white settlement of the 
town was begun. Chesebrough had come to America 
with the elder Winthrop in 1630, from Boston in Eng- 
land, where he had been born in 1591. In the Amer- 
ican Boston he was a responsible citizen. By trade a 
gunsmith, he had not been long at Wequetequock be- 
fore he was summoned b}' the General Court of Con- 
necticut on suspicion of breaking or intending to break 
the law that forbade the sale of firearms and ammuni- 
tion to the Indians. At first Chesebrough declined to 
heed the summons, as he believed he was within the 
jurisdiction of Massachusetts, but in 1651, on the ad- 
vice of Winthrop and others at New London, he pre- 
sented himself at Hartford and declared his innocence 
of the charges made against him. He insisted that he 
was not engaged in any unlawful trafiic with the nat- 
ives, and that his theology was orthodox — he had been 
a member of the First Congi-egational Church of Bos- 
ton. He agreed to give a bond not to furnish the In- 
dians with munitions of war, and there appears to have 
been no further controversy between him and the au- 
thorities. 

Thomas Stanton established himself within the pres- 
ent bounds of the town of Stonington in 1650, setting 
up a trading post at what is now Pawcatuck. He 
was a native of England or AVales, and emigrated to 
Virginia in 1636 — the year of the founding of Harvard 
College and Providence Plantations ; he was nineteen 
or twenty at the time. He made a study of the Indi- 



BEGINNINGS OF THE TOWN 13 

an tongues, and won such a reputation that he was 
later appointed interpreter general of the New England 
Colonies. It was not until 1658 that he settled his 
family at Pawcatuck, and meanwhile, in 1652, Thom- 
as Miner came to Wequetequock and built a house on 
the east shore of the cove, just across from the Chese- 
brough house, which was on the west bank. Miner 
had come to America in 1630, and lived by turns in 
Charlestown, Hingham and New London. Only a few 
months after his settlement at Wequetequock, he sold 
his house to Walter Palmer, a former neighbor of 
Chesebrough, and moved to Quiambaug, two miles 
west of the present borough of Stonington. There he 
built himself a house on land that remains in the pos- 
session of the Miners to this day. 

Walter Palmer came to America from Nottingham- 
shire, England, in 1 629, only nine years after the land- 
ing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and in advance of 
the other founders of Stonington. Palmer came to 
Stonington from Rehoboth in 1653, and acquired a 
tract of three hundred acres on the east side of We- 
quetequock cove. It was in his house, purchased of 
Thomas Miner, that the first Christian service in all 
the territory between the Thames river and Narragan- 
sett bay was held. 

Two other of the earliest comers to Stonington were 
Captain George Denison, famous as an Indian fighter, 
who settled near what is now Mystic in 1654, and 
Captain John Gallup and Robert Park, who brought 
their families to that part of the town in the same year. 



14 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

Massachusetts and Connecticut laid rival claim to 
the lands of the Pequots — each had had a share in the 
overthrow of the tribe. The settlers of Stonington, 
(Mystic and Pawcatuck the region was locally called), 
applied to the General Court at Hartford to be set off 
as a separate town, but the opposition of New London, 
which claimed the territory as far east as the Pawca- 
tuck, led to the refusal of the application. In 1657 
they made application to Massachusetts, which colony, 
the petitioners said, had, as they thought, a just claim 
to the area in dispute — but Massachusetts likewise re- 
fused the request of the little settlement on the edge 
of the wilderness. Thereupon a republic in miniature 
was set up under the name of "The Asotiation of Po- 
quatuck Peple, ' ' whose articles of agreement said : 

"Whereas thear is a difference betwene the 2 Cullonyes of the 
Matachusetts and Conecticoate about the government of this 
plac, whearby we are deprived of Expectation of protection from 
either, . . . we hose names are hereunto subscribed do hearby 
promis, testify & declare to maintain and defFend with our per- 
sons and estait the peac of the plac and to aid and assist one an- 
other acoarding to law & rules of righteousness acoarding to the 
true intent and meaning of our asociation till such other provi- 
tion be maide ffor us as may atain our end. . . . And we do not 
this out of anny disrespec unto ether of the afoarsaid govern- 
ments which we are bound ever to honnor, but in the vacancy of 
any other aforesaid." 

From this declaration of independence in 1658 it 
will be seen how the Anglo-Saxon in the New World 
was being trained for that self-confidence and efficiency 
that flowered in the great Declaration of 1776. 

In this same vear, however — 1658 — the commiss- 




SOUTHERTOWN 

The faintly dotted line shows the extent of the old Massachusetts 
township of 1658. The first settlement in the town was at Wequetequock in 
1649. The jurisdiction of Connecticut was acknowledged in 1662, and the 
name of the town was changed to Stonington in 1666 



16 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

ioners appointed to settle the dispute between Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut gave in their decision, find- 
ing the claims of the two colonies to the Pequot lands, 
based on their triumph in the fight at Mystic, practi- 
cally equal. Accordingly they divided the territory 
between the two, with the Mystic river as the bound- 
ary. Eastward to Weekapaug, well within the 
present town of "Westerly, Rhode Island, Massa- 
chusetts was to control ; westward, Connecticut. The 
local name of "Mystic and Pawcatuck" was changed 
to Southertown, the limits of which therefore included 
the later town of Stonington and much of Westerly. 
A committee of the town appointed to fix the lines 
reported in March, 1659: 

"We did as followeth ffirst we began at Misticke 
Rivers mouth, and fFrom thence we run six miles to 
the north, northeast to the pond lying by Lanthome 
Hill, where we marked a chestnut tree with six noches 
right against the middle of the pond, which pond we 
fFound to be seuen chains and one pole wide, and from 
thence we run two miles due north to an ash tree 
which we marked ffouer ways and set eight noches for 
the eight miles. ' ' 

From Lantern Hill the commissioners carried the 
line eastward into what is now the town of Hopkinton 
until they reached a point north of the present summer 
resort known as Weekapaug, thus overlapping Rhode 
Island's territorial claims. The result of this confu- 
sion of colonial boundaries was a prolonged controversy 
between the Rhode Islanders and their neighbors west 



BEGINNINGS OF THE TOWN 17 

of the Pawcatuck. Within the memory of men whose 
lives were lived entirely within the nineteenth century, 
indeed, the rivalry of the youth of Westerly and 
Stonington was keen and vigorous. Westerly gave 
the opprobrious name of "fishtails" to the boys of 
Stonington, and Stonington impolitely responded with 
"buckies." The surest way to start trouble in the 
public highway was to raise the cry that a lad from 
the other town had put in his appearance on hostile 
ground. 

In 1662 the town was surrendered to Massachusetts 
by virtue of the charter granted to Connecticut, 
Three years later it was officially called Mystic, and in 

1666 the name of Stonington was given to it, probably 
because of the character of the soil. So far as is known 
the town was never represented in the General Court 
of Massachusetts, and it was not until 1664 that 
William Chesebrough was elected as its first represen- 
tative at Hartford. 

Other early settlers were John Shaw, Josiah Witter, 
John Searles, Edmund Fanning and James York. In 

1667 a committee was appointed by the town to lay 
out "home lots" of twelve acres each, near the present 
*'Road" Church. The next year there were forty-three 
heads of families in town. 



CHAPTER II 

THE SEITLEMENT OF LONG POINT 

Before the settlement of what is now Stonington 
Borough was undertaken, an elaborate scheme was 
broached for a townsite on the west side of the harbor, 
at Wamphasset. A plan was exhibited to the public 
showing thirtj'-two house lots, with streets apparently 
on a rectangular pattern; and for some years the 
project seems to have promised success. Houses were 
erected and at least one warehouse and one wharf were 
built. It is said that the settlement was given up 
because the depth of water was not sufficient on the 
west side of the harbor. At any rate, the growth of 
the communit}' on the east side of the harbor, at 
Long Point, was so rapid from 1753 onward that the 
earlier settlement was soon overshadowed. 

The town records show a number of instances of 
sales of lots and buildings at Wamphasset, one of 
which ma}' be cited verbatim as an illustration of the 
legal phraseolog}' of the day : 

"To all People to whom these Presents shall come, I 
John Whiting of Stonington in the County of 
New London and Colony of Connecticott in New Eng- 
land &c Yeoman, send Greeting, Know ye that I 
the John Whiting for and in consideration of the sum 



SETTLEMENT OF LONG POINT 19 

of Eight Hundred and Sevent}" pounds current money 
of New England to me in hand before the Ensealing 
hereof, well and truly paid by Thomas Noyes of 
Westerly in Kings County and Colony of Rhode 
Island &c Yeoman, the Receipt wherefor I do hereby 
acknowledge, and my Self therewith fully Satisfied, 
contented and paid, and thereof, and of every part 
and Parcel thereof. Do Exonerate acquit, and Dis- 
charge the Said Thomas Noyes his heirs. Executors, & 
Administrators forever by these Presents : Haue given 
granted bargained, Sold, aliened, enfeoffed conveyed 
and confirmed, and by these Presents Do freely, fully, 
and absolutely give grant bargain Sell, alien enfeofFe, 
convey and confirm unto him the the Sd. Thomas 
Noyes his heirs and assigns forever one certain parsel ; 
Tract or Lott of Land ; Lying and being within the 
ToAvnship of Stonington aforesaid, containing one half 
acre be same more or Less, being bounded as followeth : 
VIZ : Beginning at a Rock Standing about Seven 
feet North or Northwest from the Northwest corner 
of the Dwelling house the said Whiting now dwellethin, 
and from Said Rock Running Southeast and by East 
to the Harbour or Salt water ; which is the Noi'th side 
of Said Lott ; and from said Rock Running South- 
west and by South four Rods, and then Southwest and 
by East to the Salt water or harbour Parilell with the 
first mentioned line ; & So bounded on the Southeast 
or East with the harbour: together with all the 
Housing & buildings and wharf, and warehouse Stand- 
ing thereon ; To haue and to Hold, the said Granted 



20 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

and bargained Premises, witli all the appurtenances 
Privileges and Commodities to the Same belonging or 
in my wife appertaining to him the Said Thomas 
Noyes his heirs and assigns forever. ' ' 

On September 26, 1751, John and Abigail Hallam 
conveyed to Isaac Worden, mariner, of Stonington, 
for the sum of one hundred and ten pounds current 
money, lot number six on the Wamphasset plan, 
"which plan is a projection of more than Thirty lots 
of land . . . together with main & cross Streets, 
and Intended by Sd. Hallam as a Settlement for a 
Town." 

The beginning of the settlement of Long Point 
(Stonington Borough) was made shortly after 1750. 
Miss Emma W. Palmer in her interesting chapter on the 
old houses of the borough, in Miss Grace D. Wheeler's 
volume on the "Homes of Our Ancestors" (1903), 
says that Edward and John Denison, son and grand- 
son of the shipbuilder George Denison of Westerly, 
built the first house in 1752; but it was not till 1753 
that Elihu Chesebrough, of the family to which the 
point had originally belonged, a hundred years before, 
sold to Edward Denison two tracts at the point. As 
early as October 26, 1750, however, Humphrey Avery, 
county surveyor, reports that he has completed 
with the assistance of chainmen the task intrusted to 
him by Captain Nathan Chesebrough, Captain 
Uliomas Wheeler and several other inhabitants of the 
town of Stonington, "to Survey boundout and 
Describe a highway across their farmes from said 



SETTLEMENT OF LONG POINT 21 

Stonington Harbour, to the North meeting House in 
Sd. Town. ' ' He says : 

"I began at a meerstone marked Avith the Letter 
— : R : Standing South, Eight Rods and Sixteen Links 
from said Capt. Chesebrough's warehouse on the 
East Side of Sd. Harboure, & at highwater mark 
on Sd. Capt. Chesebrough's Land." 

From this point he proceeded to the "Post Road 
186: Rods to a meerstone at the North Side of Sd. 
Post Road, Standing west 22 North ten Rod: 20: 
Links from the N, W. corner of the Meeting House 
in the East Society in Sd. Town, at Mr. EHhu 
Chesebrow's Land;" and finally to the road in "the 
North Parrish in Sd. Town, which the Meeting House 
Stands on. ' ' The road thus described was two rods and 
a half wide, "which afforesd. Road, Now Laved & 
Discribed is in the Place where it is, and hath 
been used for many years as a way from Sd. Harbour 
to Said North Meeting House." 

On November 24, 1750, the land for this "Publick 
Highway" was granted to John Williams, Joseph 
Denison and John Holmes and the rest of the in- 
habitants of Connecticut by Nathan Chesebrough, 
Elihu Chesebrough, Clement Minor, Samuel Minor, 
2d, Samuel Frink, Joseph Hewit, Samuel Plumb, John 
Macdowell, Samuel Miner and Joseph Babcock, who 
reserved to themselves, however "the Previledge of 
feeding the land." 

Under date of August 7, 1753, Elihu Chesebrough, 
with the assent of Esther his wife, who waived her 



22 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

dower rights in the property, conveyed to Edward 
Denison of Stonington, in consideration of one thou- 
sand pounds "in bills of credit old tenor" a two- 
acre tract on Long Point. This land as described 
in the town records began "at the South East corner 
of a highway Laid out by a Jury on Said point". 
On the same day also Mr. Chesebrough conveyed to 
him a tract of one acre and ten rods, also on Long 
Point, for the sum of six hundred and thirty-four 
pounds ; and to Samuel Stanton of Stonington one 
tract of half an acre adjoining the land sold to 
Denison and a second tract of half an acre for two 
hundred and forty-four pounds. To Edward Hancox, 
Jr. , of Stonington, on the same day, he conveyed two 
half-acre lots, one for two hundred and the other for 
one hundred and seventy pounds. The first is de- 
scribed as being adjacent to "a Rode Lately Layed 
out from Sd. Stonington harbour on the East Side 
of Sd. Harbour." 

Thus in a single day six parcels of land were con- 
vej^ed to Messrs Denison, Stanton and Hancox at 
Long Point ; each of these family names has since been 
intimately connected with the history of the place. 

Edward Denison 's house was a large structure of two 
and a half stories, with a great central chimney. It 
stood on what was first called Town square, but is 
now known as Cannon square, because it is the rest- 
ing place of the two eighteen pound guns used in the 
defence of the town against the British in 1814. 

The Denison house was built for the farmers 



SETTLEMENT OF LONG POINT 23 

*'who came to sell their stock and produce to those en- 
gaged in the West India trade, which was quite 
profitable at that time, before the Revolution." 
According to Miss Palmer Mr. Denison built the first 
wharf at the foot of the street in 1752 (or 1753?) 
"and continued the West India trade in which he had 
been engaged in Westerly. The house was after- 
wards occupied by Mr. Giles Hallam, and was burnt 
in the great fire of 1837, the family hardly escaping 
with their lives." 

Under date of September 24, 1754, Samuel Griffing 
of Stonington conveyed to his brother Thomas Griffing 
for the sum of nine hundred pounds "in bills of credit 
old Tenor" about one-sixteenth of an acre on the east 
side of Stonington Harbor, on the ' 'Main Street. ' ' 

Samuel and Thomas Griffing at this time jointly 
owned a dwelling house on this street, the premises of 
which house ran from the street westerly to the harbor. 

It may be added that Main Street was laid out from 
the harbor to the town of Preston in 1752, and that 
in the same year the first town landing was built north 
of the present main tracks of the New Haven railroad. 



CHAPTER III 

A MEETING HOUSE LOTTERY 

Meeting houses built by lottery were no rarity in 
Colonial New England. In the early days of Long 
Point the " proffessors of the established religion" in 
the village felt the need of a church edifice but, being 
unable to raise the necessary money by voluntary 
contributions, applied to the General Assembly for per- 
mission to conduct a lottery for the purpose. 

There were already two meeting houses within four 
miles of Long Point, one erected by the West, the 
other by the East, Society. These two Societies 
united in 1765 and were ministered to for several years 
by Rev. Nathaniel Eells, who preached six months in 
one meeting house and six months in the other. 
Afterwards Mr. Eells was secured for the afternoon 
service at the Point, eighty-three residents of which in 
1774 set forth in a persuasive petition to Hartford 
their wants and wishes. They said that they were 
nearly four miles distant from any meeting house, 
that the inhabitants of the village were generally poor, 
making their living chiefly in the whale and cod fish- 
eries, that the community had increased to upwards 
of eighty families, comprising nearly five hundred per- 
sons, "among which are twenty widows, seventeen of 




MAIN Streei in Summer 



A MEETING HOUSE LOTTERY 25 

which have children as famihes," and that there was 
not one horse to ten families in the place — a lamentable 
situation indeed. For lack of a proper meet- 
ing place they were wont to assemble in a small 
schoolhouse or in private houses, the attendant in- 
conveniences of which practice were so great that 
Sunday was misspent by many persons who would 
otherwise not profane it ; in short, the cause of religion 
greatly suffered, and an increase of vice and irreligion 
was feared. The petition continued: 

"That the town of which your memorialists are a 
part have lately paid and are liable to pay upwards of 
one thousand pounds for the deficiency of several 
collectors that have lately failed ; that your memorial- 
ists from gi'eat necessity, by their being remote from 
any constant grist mill, have lately contributed about 
seventy pounds as an encouragement to an undertaker to 
build a windmill at said point, which with about the 
same sum lately subscribed by said inhabitants for a 
schoolhouse, with the great labor and expense they 
have been at to make roads and causeways to said 
point, all which with the poor success that attended 
the last year's fishery, and the lowness of markets and 
the various and different sentiments in the religious 
denominations of Christians among them, viz. : First 
day Baptists, Seven day Baptists and the Quakers or 
those called Friends, are such real grief and dis- 
couragements to your memorialists, who are of the 
established Religion of this Colony, that they can no 
longer think of obtaining a meeting house by subscrip- 
tion or an}^ other way among themselves." 



26 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

To many readers of the present generation it would 
be interesting to mark the names attached to this peti- 
tion. Some of the families represented still survive in 
Stonington ; others have not a single descendant within 
the borders of the borough. There are no longer any 
members of the Morgan, Rathbun, Tripp, Champlin, 
Lamb, Hillard, Tenny, Grafton, Buddington, Beebe, 
Littlefield, Niles, Cobb, Elliot, Borden, Crary, 
Seabury, Satterlee, Ashcroft, Irish, Chester, Gallaway, 
Sparhawk, Fellows, Coleman or Fanning families on 
' 'Long Point, ' ' and probably several other names have 
disappeared. What a change has been wrought in a 
century and a third in this small corner of the world, 
where it is customary to think of life going on placid- 
1}' and without much ebb and flow of population. Of 
Stonington Borough it is recorded that Rufus Choate 
once said it was the only place he had ever seen that 
was entirely finished. Possibly the tale is apochry- 
phal ; possibly it is a standard story, applied impartially 
to scores of New England towns. But how inaccurate 
its characterization of even the most sluggish commu- 
nity must be is indicated in the radical changes that 
have occurred since 1774 in Stonington. Doubtless 
Mr. Choate, if he made the remark attributed to him, 
referred to the lack of material growth in the community ; 
yet even so, his facile verdict fell short. When these 
memorialists for a lottery sent their petition to the 
General Assembly, Stonington was a scanty village of 
three or four score houses, many or most of them a 



A MEETING HOUSE LOTTERY 27 

story and a half in height under their quaint gambrel 
roofs ; with one broad highway — Main street — and a 
primitive series of lanes where the cross streets now 
are. No doubt the grass flourished jealously 
beside the narrow paths that served for sidewalks, and 
it is a well authenticated tradition that only a hundred 
years ago Water street was so crude a thorough- 
fare that an agile lad might leap from rock to rock 
throughout its entire length without once putting his 
feet on the ground. But to return to the meeting 
house. The General Assembly granted the petition 
of the Long Pointers, whose monetary and other dis- 
tresses, however real, lost nothing in the formal recital ; 
but it was not until 1777 that the lottery was drawn 
and the desired funds were secured. Fate willed, 
however, that there should be no meeting house at the 
Point for the time being. The Revolutionary War 
opened, much of the money was used for the defence 
of the village, and the rest of it, being invested in 
Continental bills, was lost by I'eason of their utter 
depreciation. Again in 1785, two years after the 
Peace with Great Britain, another petition for a 
lotteiy was granted by the Assembly, (the amount 
being limited as before to four hundred pounds), and 
the money was raised ; but as the meeting house of the 
East Society at Putnam's Corners, near the present 
residence of Fernando Wheeler and the "Whitefield 
Elm," was in the market, this was taken down and 
re-erected at the Point in 1785-86. The lot on which 
it stood is occupied by the house of Mrs. Lucius N. 



28 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

Palmer, on the east side of Wadawanuck square. It 
was set back from the street and survived until 1860, 
though in its later years it was unused and in a 
dilapidated condition. Immediate^ in front of it, 
between it and the street, was the house of Samuel 
Trumbull, the first publisher of Stonington, who 
printed the "Journal of the Times" and many books. 
The Trumbull house was torn down about the same 
time as the meeting house. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE FIRST BRITISH ATTACK 

What other town in Connecticut was ever the scene 
of an American victory over the British ! New London 
and Groton were ravaged by the redcoats under Arnold, 
who, returning to his native county after the treacherous 
episode of West Point, wreaked his vengeance for his 
self-inflicted misfortunes on the hapless communities 
at the mouth of the Thames ; General Tryon, erstwhile 
colonial governor of New York, led a British expedi- 
tion into the state in 1779 and burned Danbury. 
But Stonington twice repulsed the forces of His 
Britannic Majesty — once in 1775 and again in 1814. 
Is it not fitting that the General Assembly should in 
some way provide for the enduring recognition of this 
unique and dual triumph? 

The first British attack upon Stonington occurred 
on the thirtieth of August, in the year of Lexington 
and Concord, more than ten months previous to the 
signing of the Declaration of Independence. The 
British troops were at the time besieged in Boston, 
with the Yankee net so tight about them that provi- 
sions had to be sought by sea rather than by land. 
Admiral Graves despatched Captain Sir James Wallace, 
accordingly, to the coasts of southern New England to 



30 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

forage for fat cattle. Captain Wallace was then 
forty-four years of age, a naval veteran of nearly 
thirty years service, who had been appointed in Nov- 
ember, 1771, to the command of the Rose, a twenty- 
gun frigate. It would be interesting to have an 
exact description of this vessel ; very likel}^ she was a 
three-masted ship with a double bank of guns — one 
bank on the main or gun deck and a lighter battery on 
the upper or spar deck. The Dictionary of National 
(British) Biography says of Captain Wallace that 
"during 1775 and the first part of 1776 he was 
actively engaged in those desultory operations against 
the coast towns which were calculated to produce the 
greatest possible irritation with the least possible 
advantage. ' ' So far as Stonington was concerned, how- 
ever, this maximum of irritation and minimum of 
advantage were both experienced by Wallace himself. 
He had burned a score of houses and barns on the 
island of Conanicut in Narragansett bay and made off 
with a cargo of live stock. At Bristol, on the east . 
side of Narragansett, he ordered the magistrates 
to come on board and hear his demands, and when 
they declined this peremptory invitation he opened fire 
upon the place with disastrous results. Thereupon the 
town fathers yielded and promised him cattle and 
provisions. Naturally the isolated inhabitants of 
Block Island, ten miles south of the main shore of 
Rhode Island, waxed apprehensive as they heard of 
these raids so near their own doors. So they shipped 
their cattle to Stonington,. twenty miles distant, where 



FIRST BRITISH ATTACK 31 

they hoped the beasts could be sustained in safety 
until the dread marauder had passed. The sequel 
showed that their hope was not in vain, though what 
actually happened could hardly have been foreseen by 
them. 

Sir James was promptly made aware of this prudent 
action of the Block Islanders, and determined to have 
the cattle nevertheless. Perhaps the very fact of their 
withdrawal to the mainland spurred him on. They 
had been put prosperously to pasture on the plains of 
Quonaduc, just above the village of Stonington, when 
he arrived off the port and sent a boat ashore to 
demand their delivery under penalty of terrible re- 
prisals. The Long Point patriots, however, were in 
no mood to acquiesce in his requirements. They 
abruptly declined to surrender the cattle and assem- 
bled a defensive force with all possible speed. Captain 
Oliver Smith gathered his expert Long Point musket- 
eers and Captain William Stanton came down from 
the Road District double haste with his company of 
militia. The troops rendezvoused in the Robinson 
pasture, on the present property of Mrs. Courtlandt 
G. Babcock, just north of Wadawanuck squai'e, and 
marched thence to Brown's wharf to repel a landing 
party sent in small boats from the Rose, which remained 
in the offing. To beat back the invaders they had no 
cannon, but their Queen Anne muskets were trusty 
weapons, reputed of high effect at long range. They 
proved so distasteful to the unwelcome visitors from 
the Rose that the discomfited tenders beat a retreat 



32 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

to the frigate with heavy losses. Captain Wallace 
concluded not to venture ashore again with small 
boats but began a bombardment of the place, and for 
several hours kept it up, so that nearly every house 
suffered more or less. But no white flag was raised, 
no proposition of surrender was made. Some of the 
inhabitants of the to%vn took to their cellars for safety, 
others retired temporarily northward; still others 
found a shelter behind the abundant rocks of the 
Point, one of which, a great boulder at the southwest 
corner of Wadawanuck square, was struck by one of 
the frigate's shots. The onl}^ man wounded among 
the gallant forces of defence was Jonathan Weaver, Jr. , 
a musician in Captain Smith's company, who was 
compensated by the next General Assembly for his 
injuries to the extent of twelve pounds, four shillings 
and fourpence. Sir James, whose expedition thus 
proved a failure, except for the shingles and chimneys 
he displaced, sailed off no doubt in a huff, and the 
Block Island kine continued to feed, prosperous and 
unwitting, at Quonaduc. As for Captain Smith of 
the Long Point sharpshooters, the Assembly made 
him a major, as he deserved. 

When the Long Pointers learned that Stephen 
Peckham, a Tor}", had piloted the Rose to their 
harbor they were wroth against him. After a 
time fate overtook him and brought him, a captive, 
to Stonington. A large button wood tree then stood 
near the corner of Water and Wall streets ; it was 
known as the Liberty tree, because the Sons of Liberty 




Stoningtox Liohtholse, Built 1S42 




Stonixgtox Free Library, wadawanuck Park 



FIRST BRITISH ATTACK 33 

were wont to meet within its shade. The Tory pilot 
was taken to this tree and forced to mount a platform 
that had been set up there. Patriots of the neighbor- 
hood gathered in large numbers to witness the discomfi- 
ture and punishment of Peckham, who had previously 
given his assent to a written confession. Esquire 
Nathaniel Miner read the document to the crowd. It 
was in essence as follows: "I, Stephen Peckham, 
do hereby acknowledge that, being instigated by the 
devil, I did great injury to the inhabitants of this 
place, for which I profess my hearty sorrow, and do 
humbly ask their forgiveness." As the confession 
was written in the first person, 'Squire Miner would 
occasionally interrupt himself to remark, "Not I, but 
that fellow on the platform." Peckham was let off 
with this lenient penalty, but Stonington no doubt took 
as much satisfaction from it as if he had been hanged, 
drawn and quartered. The gentle art of punishing 
Tories was never better exemplified. 



CHAPTER V 

THE SECOND BlUTISH ATTACK 

Thirty-nine years after the successful repulse of 
Captain Wallace and the frigate Rose, the inhabitants 
of Stonington were called upon to meet once more a 
British assault. This time the attack was more serious 
but the result was much the same: the attacking 
party Avas beaten off with grave losses, while the 
defenders of the place suffered hardly at all. 

At the opening of the Second War with Great 
Britain, in 1812, Stonington Point, as the village had 
come to be known, comprised about a hundred houses, 
most of them clustered on the southern portion of the 
little peninsula. Occupying as it did an exposed 
position, the community naturally apprehended a 
British visitation, though it thought that New London 
and Newport, much more important places, were 
more likely to suffer. But in August, 1814, the 
blow descended ; Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy, 
in command of a British squadron, appeared off the 
place, and sent the authorities this truly emergent 
message: "Not wishing to destro}^ the unoffending in- 
habitants residing in the town of Stonington, one hour 
is given them from the receipt of this to remove out 
of the town." Sixty minutes to escape ! 



SECOND BRITISH ATTACK 35 

Captain Hardy was born in 1769, entered the 
British navy in 1781, and served with Nelson in the 
last years of the eighteenth century. On the tenth 
of February, 1797, at Gibraltar, he jumped into a 
jolly-boat to save a dro^vning man. The little craft 
was borne b}^ the tide toward the leading Spanish vessel. 
"By God," cried Nelson, "I'll not lose Hardy! 
Back the mizzen topsail!" This quick manoeuvre 
enabled the jolh'-boat to return in safety to the 
British frigate. For Hardy his great friend cherished 
a lively affection to the end. In the battle of Trafalgar 
in 1805, he was in command of the Admiral's flagship 
Victory, and acting captain of the fleet. When 
Nelson received his fatal wound. Hardy was walking 
with him on the quarterdeck ; and it was to him that 
the Admiral addressed his last request, "Kiss me. 
Hardy, before I die. ' ' When a committee of Stoning- 
ton citizens visited Captain Hardy's ship under a flag 
of truce, to protest against what appeared to them an 
unprovoked and brutal attack, the commander of 
the squadron received them courteously, and said, 
pointing to a lounge or settee in the cabin of the ship, 
"It may interest you, gentlemen, to know that on that 
couch Lord Nelson lay in his death, after I had given him 
my parting embrace. ' ' Hardy was forty-five at the 
time of the attack on Stonington and a naval veteran 
of thirty-three years service. He had been appointed 
to the command of the Ramillies in August, 1812, 
and that vessel was among those that made this 
sudden assault on Stonington, though Hardy sent 



36 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

his peremptory message from his temporary head- 
quarters as commander of the squadron on board the 
Pactolus. In 1815 he was nominated as a K. C. B. ; 
in 1837 he became a vice-admiral, and in 1839 he 
died at the age of seventy. His portrait given by 
Lady Hardy is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, 
England ; there is a monument to his memory in the 
hospital chapel, and a memorial pillar, visible from 
the sea, has been set up in his honor on the crest of 
the Black Down above Portisham. 

It was thus a distinguished naval commander who 
brought his squadron of four hostile vessels to Stoning- 
ton on the ninth of August, 1814, and sent so sharp 
and ruthless a communication to the borough officers. 
The squadron consisted of the Ramillies, carrying 
seventy-four guns; the Pactolus, with forty-four; the 
Despatch, a brig of twenty-two guns, and the bomb- 
ship Terror. At five o'clock in the afternoon they 
dropped anchor off shore, and at eight o'clock in the 
evening the Terror began casting its whistling shells 
in the direction of the town. Promptly in return one 
of two Revolutionary eighteen-pounders that had been 
sent to Stonington by the Government some time 
previously roared its defiance. Hardy prepared to 
follow his preliminary bombardment with sterner 
measures, and accordingly several small boats were 
sent in shore for the purpose of capturing the place. 
One account says there were four barges and three 
launches, another says there were five barges and one 
launch. The flotilla, at any rate six or seven strong. 



SECOND BRITISH ATTACK 37 

took position off the point and poured a rain of 
Congreve rockets into the village, at first to the 
grievous apprehension of the inhabitants, who soon 
discovered, however, that no great damage was being 
done to their houses and nobody was being killed. 
As soon as they grasped these essential facts they 
utilized the flare of the rockets to direct their own fire. 
The bombardment continued till midnight, and at 
dawn of the tenth was renewed. 

By this time a formidable force of militia was 
assembled in the town in response to the hurried call 
of the inhabitants for assistance. Several of the 
enemy's launches and barges had taken position near 
the east side of the point and had renewed their rain of 
rockets. The battery of the defenders consisted of 
three guns only, the two eighteen-pounders to which 
reference has been made and a four- (or six-) pounder. 
These occupied a four-foot earthwork near the present 
entrance to the old breakwater on Water street. 
The earthwork was the only fortification the village 
could boast, but above it floated the stars and stripes 
for a reminder and inspiration. Once the flag fell, 
levelled by a shot from the fleet, but a gallant 
patriot nailed it to the mast again, and there it 
floated, torn by ball and shell, till the battle ended. 

The British demonstration on the east side of the 
point called for immediate attention, so the smaller 
cannon was dragged from the battery to the 
threatened locality, and a party of volunteers estab- 
lished themselves there, anticipating an attempt at 



38 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

landing. But meanwhile one of the eighteen-pounders 
had been run to the extreme end of the point, whence 
it maintained so galling a fire that the landing party 
retreated, with one barge thoroughly shattered. 
Captain Amos Palmer, writing to the Secretary of 
War a little more than a year later, thus described 
the incident: "The next morning (August tenth) at 
seven o'clock the brig Despatch anchored within 
pistol shot of our battery, and they sent five barges 
to land under cover of their whole fire (being joined 
by the "Nimrod," twenty -gun brig.) When the 
boats approached within grape distance, we opened 
our fire on them with round- and grape-shot. They re- 
treated and came round the east side of the town. 
We checked them with our six-pounder and muskets 
till we dragged over one of our eighteen-pounders. 
We put in it a round shot and about forty or fifty 
pounds of grape, and placed it in the centre of their 
boats as they were rowing up in a line and firing on 
us. We tore one of their barges all in pieces, so that 
two, one on each side, had to lash her up to keep her 
from sinking." 

Captain Palmer continues his recital in vigorous but 
modest English; the account has the special merit of 
being that of a participant in the battle, written 
within a few months of its occurrence. He says : 
' 'They retreated out of grape distance, and we turned 
our fire upon the brig, and expended all our cartridges 
but five, which we reserved for the boats if they made 
another attempt to land. We then lay four hours, 



SECOND BRITISH ATTACK 39 

being unable to annoy the enemy in the least, except 
from muskets on the brig, while the fire from the 
whole fleet was directed against our buildings. After 
the third express from New London, some fixed 
ammunition arrived. We then turned our cannon on 
the brig, and she soon cut her cable and drifted out. 
The whole fleet then weighed and anchored nearly out of 
reach of our shot, and continued this and the next day to 
bombard the town. They set the buildings on fire in 
more than twenty places, and we as often put them out. 
In the three days' bombardment they sent on shore 
sixty tons of metal, and, strange to say, wounded only 
one man, since dead. We have picked up fifteen tons, 
including some that was taken up out of the water 
and the two anchors that we got. We took up and 
buried four poor fellows that were hove overboard out 
of the sinking barge. 

"Since peace, the officers of the 'Despatch' brig 
have been on shore here. They acknowledge they 
had twenty-one killed and fifty badly wounded, and 
further say, had we continued our fire any longer they 
should have struck, for they were in a sinking condi- 
tion ; for the wind then blew at southwest, directly 
into the harbor. Before the ammunition arrived it 
shifted to the north, and blew out of the harbor. 
All the shot suitable for the cannon we have reserved. 
We have now more eighteen-pound shot than was sent 
us by government. We have put the two cannons 
in the arsenal and housed all the munitions of war." 

At one o'clock in the afternoon of August tenth. 



40 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

the Ramillies and Pactolus took up their station two 
and a half miles from the point and the defenders of the 
town saw that matters were getting very serious. They 
therefore sent a deputation under a flag of truce to 
Captain Hardy to ask the reason for his attack. So 
far as known the only reph^ he gave was that the 
people of Stonington had fitted out torpedoes for use 
against the British fleet and that the wife of Vice 
Consul Stewart, recently resident at New London, 
was detained on shore and must be sent on shipboard 
within an hour. Both charges were denied; of 
Mrs. Stewart the Stoningtonians knew nothing what- 
ever. 

Meanwhile the army of defence was steadily increas- 
ing, and it was no longer practicable for the British 
to consider forcing a landing. Having failed against 
the little body of militia and unorganized volunteers 
on the night of the ninth, they could not hope for 
success against the host that was now swarming in from 
the neighboring country. The bombardment contin- 
ued, however, in a desultory way until the twelfth of 
August, when the squadron retired, with the Despatch 
so badly injured that she was in imminent danger of 
foundering. 

The more the story of this Battle of Stonington is 
studied, the more remarkable does it become. Against 
five British ships, equipped with a hundred and sixty 
guns and commanded by a veteran of long experience 
on both sides of the world, the scant defenders of the 
town, with three cannons and little ammunition, won 




The Eighteen Pound Defenders of 1814 




British Bombshells at Wadawanuck Park 



SECOND BRITISH ATTACK 41 

decisive. The village suffered little from the attack, 
one explanation being that the spire of the White Meet- 
ing House, east of what is now Wadawanuck square, 
deceived the enemy into thinking that most of the town 
lay far back from the sea. This does not altogether 
account, however, for the comparative immunity of 
the hundred houses of the place from injur3\ Nor 
will it do to argue that the attack was not made in 
earnest. Everything goes to show that the British, 
for some reason, greatly desired to take the town. 
Probably they thought they would meet with little 
resistance, but the event undeceived them. Nowhere 
in all the War of 1812 was a more gallant defence of 
American territory made. Perhaps no more specific 
reason for the assault need be sought than the fact 
that the British, previous to this time, had extended 
their blockade very generally along the coast 
of the new republic, and were under orders to 
"destroy and lay waste all towns and districts of the 
United States found accessive to the attack of the 
British armaments." In accordance with these orders, 
town after town was bombarded and burned. 

Philip Freneau, the famous balladist of the day, 
wrote a song about the battle that is worth setting 
down here entire : 

THE BATTLE OF STONINGTON 
ON THE SEABOARD OF CONNECTICUT 

Four gallant ships from England came 
Freighted deep with fire and flame. 



42 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 



r 



[/■ 



And other things we need not name, 
To have a dash at Stonington. 

Now safely moor'd, their work begun : 
They thought to make the Yankees run, 
And have a mighty deal of fun 
In stealing sheep at Stonington. 

A deacon then popp'd up his head, 
And Parson Jones's sermon read, 
In which the reverend doctor said 

That they must fight for Stonington. 

A townsman bade them next attend 
To sundry resolutions penn'd, 
By which they promised to defend 
With sword and gun old Stonington. 

The ships advancing different ways, 
The Britons soon began to blaze. 
And put th' old women in amaze, 
Who feared the loss of Stonington. 

The Yankees to their fort repair'd. 
And made as though they little cared 
For all that came — though very hard 
The cannon play'd on Stonington. 

The Ramillies began the attack. 
Despatch came forward — bold and black- 
And none can tell what kept them back 
From setting fire to Stonington. 



SECOND BRITISH AITACK 43 

The bombardiers with bomb and ball 
Soon made a farmer's barrack fall, 
And did a cow-house sadly maul 

That stood a mile from Stonington. 

They kill'd a goose, they kill'd a hen, 
Three hogs they wounded in a pen — 
They dashed away and pray what then? 
This was not taking Stonington. 

The shells were thrown, the rockets flew. 
But not a shell of all they threw, 
Though every house was in full view, 
Could burn a house in Stonington. 

To have their turn they thought but fair ; — 
The Yankees brought tw^o guns to bear. 
And, sir, it would have made you stare, 
This smoke of smoke at Stonington. 

They bored Pactolus through and through. 
And kill'd and wounded of her crew 
So many, that she bade adieu 

T' the gallant sons of Stonington. 

The brig Despatch was hull'd and torn — 
So crippled, riddled, so forlorn, 
No more she cast an eye of scorn 
On the little fort at Stonington. 

The Ramillies gave up the affray, 
/ And with her comrades sneak 'd away. 
Such was the valor, on that day. 
Of British tars near Stonington. 



44 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

But some assert, on certain grounds, 
(Besides the damage and the wounds), 
It cost the king ten thousand pounds 
To have a dash at Stonington. 

It is said that one of the youths of the neighborhood, 
Langworthy by name, was present at the point when 
the British vessels slunk away amid the great rejoic- 
ing of the triumphant defenders. The American 
officer in command, according to a story handed down 
in Langworthy' s family, was so exultant that he called 
for cheers and at the conclusion threw his cap in the 
air. The brisk wind carried it overboard, young 
Langworthy jumped in and brought it ashore, and the 
commandant gave him a shilling for reward. The 
tale is slight, but it helps to give us a vivid picture 
of the moment of victor}' — the vessels making off 
through Fisher's Island sound, the soldiers on shore 
relieved of their anxiety and justly happy in their 
success, and even the chief officer so exuberant that 
he had to cast his cap into the air to express his feel- 
ings. 



CHAPTER VI 

NOTES ON THE SECOND ATTACK 

An account of the bombardment of Stonington in 
1814 written by Rev. Frederic Denison and printed 
in the Mystic Pioneer, July 2, 1859, contains interest- 
ing particulars "gathered from the lips of prominent 
actors in the battle. ' ' The first men, so far as remem- 
bered, "that took stations in the battery" (on August 
ninth), it says, " were four, William Lord, Asa Lee, 
George Fellows and Amos Denison. Just before six 
o'clock, six volunteers from Mystic, Jeremiah Holmes, 
Ebenezer Denison, Isaac Denison and Nathaniel Clift, 
reached the place, on foot, and ran immediately to 

help operate the gun in the battery The 

battery being small, but few men could work in it." 
Later, on the morningof the tenth, it was operated, 
"as nearly as remembered, by Jeremiah Holmes, Simeon 
Haley, Isaac Denison, Isaac Miner, George Fellows 
and Asa Lee," This list is not complete. 

The one defender wounded during the bombardment 
was Frederick Denison, who was struck in the knee by 
a flying fragment of rock or by a direct shot from the 
brig. The wound was not considered dangerous, but he 
died on the first of the following November. A mon- 
ument was erected to his memory in Elm Grove ceme- 



46 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

tery at Mystic by the State of Connecticut. John 
Miner was badly burnt in the face b}' the premature 
discharge of one of the guns. 

The damage done to buildings was estimated a few 
days after the battle at four thousand dollars. 

"We have made some estimate of the number of 
shells and fire carcasses thrown into the village, and we 
find there have been about three hundred," says an 
account written for publication by the borough au- 
thorities, August 29. "Some respectable citizens from 
motives of curiosity weighed several shells, and found 
their weight to be as follows : One of the largest car- 
casses, partly full of the combustible, 216 lbs. One of 
the smallest sort ditto, 103 lbs. One of the largest 
kind empty, 189 lbs. One of the largest bomb shells, 
189 lbs. One of the smallest bomb shells, 90 lbs. One, 
marked on it 'fire 16 lbs.', 16 lbs. One of the largest 
carcasses partly full was set on fire, which burnt half 
an hour, emitting a horrid stench ; in a calm the flame 
would rise ten feet." 

The National Intelligencer shorth' after the battle 
said : "The defence of Stonington by a handful of brave 
citizens was more like an effusion of feeling, warm from 
the heart, than a concerted military movement. ' ' 

Niles's Weekly Register of September 10, 1814, 
said: "Mr. Chalmers, late master of the Terror, bomb 
vessel, employed in the attack on Stonington, has been 
captured in a British barge and sent to Providence. 
He says 170 bombs were discharged from that ship in 
the attack on Stonington, which were found to weigh 



NOTES ON SECOND ATTACK 47 

eighty pounds each ; the charge of powder for the mor- 
tar was nine pounds ; adding to this the wadding, that 
vessel must have disgorged eight tons weight." But 
the bombshells weighed at Stonington tipped the beam 
at 189 pounds, just one hundred pounds more than 
their weight as Mr. Chalmers is quoted as reporting it. 
This would make the total weight discharged from the 
Terror more than thirteen tons, exclusive of the wad- 
ding. 

Niles's Weekly Register stated on June 3, 1815, 
that "the iron mine is not yet exhausted, for certain 
persons in the diving machine have raised no less than 
11,209 lbs. of shot, which was thrown overboard from 
the Pactolus, when she was in such a hurr}' to get away 
from the guns of Stonington." 

The long accepted story is that George Howe Fel- 
lows "nailed the colors to the mast" when a British 
shot had laid them low, but in a paper before the 
Stonington Historical and Genealogical Society in 
1909, Miss Emma W. Palmer said: "When Captain 
Jeremiah Holmes's ammunition gave out, Stonington 
was at the mercy of the invaders, and a timid citizen 
who was at the batter}^ proposed a formal surrender by 
lowering the colors that wei'e floating over their heads. 
'No,' shouted Captain Holmes indignantly, 'that flag 
shall never come down while I am alive. ' And it did 
not in submission to the foe. When the wind died a- 
way and it hung drooping by the side of the staff", the 
captain held out the flag on the point of a bayonet, 
that the British might see it, and while in that posi- 



48 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

tion several shots passed through it. To prevent its 
being struck by some coward, Captain Hohiies held a 
companion (J. Dean Gallup or George H. Fellows, a 
mooted question,) upon his shoulders while the latter 
nailed it to the staff. 

"In 1860 Mr. Benson J. Lossing came to Stonington 
to look up material for his book, 'The Field Book of 
the War of 1812,' and was the guest of my father. 
Dr. George E. Palmer, who took him to see the vener- 
able hero. Captain Jeremiah Holmes, at Mystic, He 
was in good health of mind and body, and told the 
story of his part of the fight as above, emphasizing the 
fact of its being J. Dean Gallup who stood on his 
shoulders, instead of George Howe Fellows. Miss 
Palmer added, "My father always said that George H. 
Fellows was not even here at the time of the attack." 

A list of the volunteers who participated in the de- 
fence of the town was printed as follows in the Connect- 
icut Gazette of August 17, 1814: Of Stonington — 
Captain George Fellows, Captain William Potter, Dr. 
William Lord, Lieutenant H. G. Lewis, Ensign D. 
Frink, Gurdon Trumbull, Alex. G. Smith, Amos Den- 
ison Jr., Stanton Gallup, Ebenezer Morgan, John 
Miner. Of Mystic — Jesse Dean, Dean Gallup, Fred 
Haley, Jeremiah Holmes, N. Clift, Jedediah Reed. Of 
Groton — Alfred White, Ebenezer Morgan, Frank Dan- 
iels, Giles Morgan. Of New London — Major Simeon 
Smith, Captain Noah Lester, Major N. Frink, Lambert 
Williams. From Massachusetts — Captain Leonard and 
Mr. Dunham. The same paper on August 31 added 




Little Narragansett Bay 




Stonington Harbor 



NOTES ON SECOND ATTACK 49 

the following names which had been omitted from the 
first list " by an error of the compositor:" Simeon 
Haley, Jeremiah Haley, Frederick Denison, John Min- 
er, Asa Lee, Thomas Wilcox, Luke Palmer, George 
Palmer, William G. Bush. "There were probably 
others," said the Gazette, "whom we have not learnt. " 
There were also forty-two drafted militiamen from the 
northern part of the state, under Lieutenant Samuel 
Hough, whose service on guard at Stonington extended 
from June 29 to August 29, 1814. The Eighth Com- 
pany of the Thirtieth Regiment under Captain William 
Potter assembled on the evening of August ninth. At- 
tracted by the signal fires that had been lighted to a- 
rouse the countryside, a large part of the Thirtieth 
Regiment hastened to the borough, so that by day- 
break the defenders numbered 290, not including Col- 
onel Randall's staff. Brigadier General Isham arrived 
with his staff from New London about noon on August 
tenth, and took command. 



CHAPTER VII 

STONINGTON IN 1819 

In a quaint old volume bearing the title, "A Gaz- 
etteer of the States of Connecticut and Rhode-Island. 
Written with Care and Impartiality, from Original 
and Authentic Materials," by John M. Niles, and pub- 
lished at Hartford by William S. Marsh in 1819, the 
following description of the town and borough of Ston- 
ington five years after the repulse of Hardy's squadron 
is taken : 

The town is uneven, being hilly and rocky, but the 
soil, which is a gravelly loam, is rich and fertile, and 
admirably adapted to grazing ; the dairy business, or 
making of cheese and butter, being the leading agri- 
cultural interest. Barley, corn and oats are cultivated. 

There are no rivers within the town deserving no- 
tice; the Paucatuck, which runs upon its eastern bor- 
der, and separates it from Rhode-Island, and the Mys- 
tic, that forms its western boundar}^, and separates it 
from Groton, are short but considerable streams. 

There is an arm of the sea extending from Stoning- 
ton harbour northeasterly, over which is Quanaduck 
stone bridge. A turnpike runs from New-London 
through Groton and Stonington and intersects the turn- 



STONINGTON IN 1819 51 

pike road from Providence to Westerly, in the state of 
Rhode-Island. 

There are 1 1 00 tons of shipping owned in this town, 
which are employed either in the business of fishing, or 
in the coasting and West India trade, and which furn- 
ish employment to a portion of the inhabitants. The 
maritime situation and interests of the town have given 
a direction to the pursuits and habits of its citizens ; 
and Stonington has become conspicuous as a nursery 
of seamen, distinguished for their enterprise, persever- 
ance and courage. 

But although principally engaged in the pursuits of 
agriculture, fishing and navigation, other important 
interests have not been neglected. There are few 
towns in the state that have done more in certain 
branches of manufactures; there being two Woolen 
Factories and one Cotton P'actory upon an extensive 
scale in the town. 

The civil divisions of Stonington are 1 Ecclesiastical 
Society, 8 School Districts, and an incorporated bor- 
ough. 

Stonington Borough, incorporated by the Legislat- 
ure in 1801, is situated on a narrow point of land of 
about half a mile in length, at the eastern extremity 
of Long Island sound. On its east side lies Paucatuck 
bay, and on its west the harbour, terminating in Lam- 
bert's Cove. It has four streets running north and 
south, intersected at right angles by nine cross streets, 
and contains about 120 Dwelling houses and Stores. It 
also has 2 Houses for public worship, an Academy, 
where the languages are taught, and 2 common schools, 



52 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

2 Rope walks, commodious wharves and ware-houses 
for storage. 

The fisheries have for a long time been prosecuted 
with industry and success by the inhabitants, who em- 
ploy from 10 to 15 vessels in this business; which an- 
nually bring in about 7000 quintals of codfish, & 1000 
bbls. of mackerel, besides most other species of fish 
which are taken by smaller vessels and boats. There 
is also a brig engaged in the sealing business, in the 
Pacific ocean ; three packets which ply regularly be- 
tween this port and New-York ; a pilot boat to cruise 
for vessels on the coast bound in ; and a number of 
vessels employed in the coasting trade, which carry to 
the southern market their fish, with the cheese, barley 
&c. of the adjacent country. Many fine ships and 
brigs are built here for the New- York market. 

In the census of 1810, the town contained 3043 in- 
habitants ; and there are now 335 qualified Electors. 
There are 20 Mercantile Stores, 4 Grain Mills, 3 Card- 
ing Machines, 1 Pottery & 1 Tannery. There is a 
Public Arsenal belonging to the United States, which 
is a substantial brick building ; 2 Churches, one for 
Congregationalists and one for Baptists ; 1 Academy or 
Grammar School ; 8 district or common Schools ; 3 At- 
tornies, and 3 practising Physicians. 

The general hst of the town, in 1817, was $45,991. 



CHAPTER VIII 

WHALING AND SEALING (bY JAMES H. WEEKs) 

Any history of Stonington would be incomplete 
which failed to contain a chapter on whaling and seal- 
ing, for in the early years of the nineteenth century, 
and even for many 3^ears before, this place had her 
fleet on the high seas and in the cold climate of the far 
southern islands in search of whales, seals and sea ele- 
phants. The builders of Stonington took from the 
depths of old ocean that which was readily turned into 
the hard shekels which went to sustain life. From all 
oceans came her ships which hunted the several species 
of whales for their baleen and oil — staple articles that 
found a ready market in all ports of the world. The 
oil was the illuminating fluid of the long winter even- 
ings when our grandmothers did so much of the work 
of which we know nothing to-day. The whale bone was 
put to various commercial uses and served its purposes 
so well that nothing has yet been found adequately to 
take its place. 

Mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts all longed 
for the return of the men from the voyage which 
perhaps covered a period of two, three or even four 
years. It was before the days of the fast mail, and 
word from both home and ship was anxiously awaited. 



54 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

On the high seas in the old bluntnose whale ship men 
learned that hardy life and discipline which served 
them so well when they went to war against England 
in 1812, and later in our civil war. They learned to 
fight life as it came to them, to live on the most com- 
mon of food and to enjoy every day ; and the sea al- 
ways retained its lure for them. The ships fitted for 
their long voyages at the breakwater, after it was built 
(about 1827), and at the several wharves of the town ; 
and those Avere busy times along the water front. In 
fact the industry became so great that the United 
States Government established our custom house and 
made Stonington a port of entry in 1842. The ships 
were repaired here by being hauled down first on one 
side, then on the other, and the sound of the hammer 
as the caulking was put in the seams and the heavy 
copper put on the ships' bottoms made the borough a 
busy place. The warp, sails, bread and other needed 
articles were made here and some of our older residents 
remember when our wharves and breakwater were cov- 
ered with the huge casks and shooks filled with oil ready 
for the market. Only scattered facts come to us of the 
industry before our second war with England. Ston- 
ington being on the coast, it is more than likely that 
our early settlers hunted the whales that must have 
spouted and gambolled in Long Island and Fisher's 
Island sounds. Yet almost every shred of evidence 
which would connect us with such facts is lost forever. 
There is the rumor here and there, but the earliest 
fact which the writer can find comes from some notes 



WHALING AND SEALING 55 

made by the late David S. Hart in a book, and copied 
from a paper of the early da3's : "Samuel Trumbull, the 
first printer of a newspaper in the borough (Stoning- 
ton), commenced the Journal of the Times Oct. 2nd, 
1798. 

"The 52d number was changed to the Impartial 
Journal. This says in 1799 : 'A large school of whales of 
various sizes and to the number, it is supposed, of 200 
appeared in Long Island sound 8 miles from this place. 
A number of citizens went out to take one, but being 
without suitable warp, met with no success, although 
one whale was harpooned. Returning however with 
the proper gear they succeeded in killing one, which was 
towed in the same day, to the admiration of a great 
number of people. It measured 40 feet in length and 
30 in circumference. ' Sealing was carried on extensive- 
ly at this early date and the paper had an advertise- 
ment as follows — 'For Sale. Seal skins from the 
Little Sarah, by Capt. George Howe;' and this note: 
'Capt. Edmund Fanning returned from a successful 
sealing voyage by way of Canton,' as well as this — 
'Extract from a letter from Mr. Joseph Copp of this 
port, dated Crow's Nest Harbor, South Georgia, on 
board ship Aspasia, Jan. 31, 1801: Capt. George 
Howe scoured the whole coast of Patagonia last sea- 
son, thence he sailed to the Falkland Islands and win- 
tered, thence took his departure in November last, sup- 
posedly for Staten Land ; when he left the former he 
had 5,000 skins.' " 

These extracts show how the two industries went 



56 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

hand in hand, in ships from Stonington. The papers, 
logs and all data from then up to the driving of the 
ships from the sea by the English have been lost. 
Most have been consumed by the flames. 

When peace was resumed there were 20,000 barrels 
of oil on hand in the United States, and in 1815 it was 
quoted at $1.40 per gallon. In 1823 it fell to 48 
cents and in 1825 it rose again to 81 cents. In the 
latter year 89,218 barrels were brought into the United 
States. Stonington commenced again to feel the ef- 
fects of the re-established industry and in 1820 three 
ships came in, the brig Mary, James Davis master, 194 
tons, with 78 barrels of sperm and 744 of whale oil ; 
the brig Mary Ann, Isaac English master, 183 tons, 
59 barrels of whale oil; ship Carrier, A. Douglass 
master, 928 barrels of whale oil and 2040 pounds of 
bone. Each year there was an increase, and local men 
commenced to command the ships. 

The Thomas Williams was built at Westerly, the 
Charles Phelps at the same place, while the Betsy 
Williams was built at the ' 'kiln dock, ' ' so called, at 
the foot of Wall street in Stonington Borough. Own- 
ers commenced to buy ships from other ports, and be- 
tween the years 1841 and 1845 twenty crafts went in 
search of whales from the port of Stonington. (See 
the end of this chapter for names and dates. ) 

Stonington men were among the first to petition 
Congress to establish a postal line on ships which sailed 
from New England on whaling voyages and the far is- 
lands in the Pacific Ocean. Some of our ships became 




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WHALING AND SEALING 57 

famous. There was the old "Herald," which left 
Stonington in charge of Capt. Samuel Barker, and 
which was owned by Charles P. Williams of Stoning- 
ton. Starbuck in his pamphlet announced : "Sold at 
Rio Janeiro (?) 1848, by Captain. Also 600 sperm." 
This means that the craft was stolen b}' her master, 
sold and converted into a slaver to carry negroes from 
Africa to South America. AVhat became of her cap- 
tain was never known. The craft was seized at the 
Brazilian port in 1850 and Mr. Edward Kent, repre- 
senting the LTnited States, tried to sell her for the insur- 
ance company which held the risk. She was in poor 
condition and her ultimate fate is not known. She 
was sold into the slave trade about May 10, 1848. 

The ship Cynosure was also stolen from her owiier, 
John F. Trumbull, and sold into the slave trade. The 
Betsey Williams was built at Stonington on what is now 
the property of C. N. Wayland at the foot of Wall 
street. She was built for Charles P. Williams and was 
a well-fitted craft. She sailed on her first trip Nov. 
11, 1846, in command of Captain Palmer Hall 
of Avondale, R. I., and returned in April, 1849. She 
made sevei'al voyages and was sold. The ship Charles 
Phelps was built at Westerly in 1841-1842 by Silas 
Greenman, and had a career as interesting as that of a 
human being. She was built on honor, of native oak 
taken from the woods of our region ; into her frame 
went the finest of metals to hold her together. Her 
spars and rigging were tried and true, for they came 
from the old barque Beaver of Hudson, once owned by 



58 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

John Jacob Astor and used by him in trips to the far 
north. She made five voyages from Stonington, was 
sold to New London parties and was used till the Civil 
War. She found a place in the "old stone fleet" to 
be sunk in Charleston, S. C, but was in such good 
condition that she was reserved for a supply ship and 
the Government used her all through the war as such. 
She was then sold to New Bedford parties, refitted, and 
renamed the Progress and went on several trips to the 
Arctic in search of whales. Her last service was in 
connection with the great World's Fair at Chicago, 
in 1893, where she was used as an exhibit and 
thousands saw in her, for the first time, how the 
whale was caught and treated for commercial use. She 
was left to rot in a creek at the last named city. Her 
figurehead may be seen at the Library at Westerly, 
R. 1. 

The last ship to be seen at Stonington was the Cincin- 
nati and she remained idle here for a long time. The 
war of 1861-1865 put an end to the whaling industry 
as far as our port was concerned. Our vessels went to 
other ports and among the number in the "old stone 
fleet" to be sunk to blockade southern harbors were 
several which had brought thousands of dollars to their 
owners. An idea of the value of a cargo may be had 
by the following manifest as entered at the Stonington 
custom house by the owner of the Phelps on her 
return from her third voyage in 1850: "275 barrels 
of sperm oil at $36 a barrel, $9,900; 2,600 barrels 
of whale oil at $15 a barrel, $39,000; 35,000 pounds 



WHALING AND SEALING 59 

of whalebone at 35 cents a pound, S12,250; total 
S61,150. This cargo sold in the market for nearly 
$120,000 and it will be seen what a profit the owner 
obtained. During this voyage the catch was — sperm 
whales, 9, right whales, 24, steeple-tops, 6, blackfish, 
39, total 78, The crew had a living while on the voyage 
and on the return got little cash and so were ready to 
sign for another trip on the high seas. Some of the 
men in fact found themselves in debt to the ship and 
after a few days on shore started out in life anew. The 
captain had as his "lay" 1-15 or 1-16 of the voyage, 
while some of the hands would get 1-175 and very 
likely the green youth in the capacity of cabin boy re- 
ceived 1-200 as his munificent share. The men 
who were taken from here were only enough to man 
the ship till the Western or Azore islands were reached. 
They were in many instances young, hardy fellows 
and anxious to try life on the main. Many Indians 
from the north came and shipped. At the Azores 
men were shipped for the remainder of the trip. Then 
down around Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope 
the old ship would pound her way ; stops would be 
made at various islands for wood, potatoes and other arti- 
cles. On for many days and the Sandwich islands 
would be reached. Here the men would have shore 
leave and other hands would be taken on if wanted. 
The ship would refit and proceed to the northwest 
coast to battle with wind, waves, ice and whales. 

Sometimes two seasons would be required to fill the 
ship and then the long run for home would begin. 



60 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

In all this there was much excitement, and the men 
loved the sea. But there was work to be done, the 
many thousand pounds of whalebone had to be 
cleaned and carefully packed, leaking casks had to 
be recoopered and sails, rigging and spars repaired and 
cleaned and the whole ship painted. It was a happy 
day when the crown of Lantern Hill came in sight as 
the first land to be made. "Watch Point" was left 
behind and the "old whaler" came to anchor in the 
"Deep Hole" and the master came ashore to report 
his success or failure. 

As previously shown, the sealing industry was car- 
ried on extensively in the early years of the nineteenth 
century. Small sloops were fitted out at Stonington 
to go to the Patagonia coast and islands south of 
there. Large and valuable catches were made. About 
1820 fleets commenced to go to engage in this fishery, and 
it was on such a trip that Nathaniel B. Palmer took 
his sloop Hero to the edge of the vast Antarctic conti- 
nent and discovered that section known as Palmer 
Land. Edmund Fanning, Benjamin Pendleton and Na- 
thaniel B. and Alexander S. Palmer took crafts to 
these faraway rookeries to get the fur seal for clothing 
and the hair seal which was used in harness and the 
trunk making trade. 

The schooner Betsey Elucid came in May 7, 1834. 
She had 1390 prime and 500 pup fur seal skins, 38 
salted bullock skins and 36 dried bullock skins. The 
schooner Henrietta came in May 11, 1834, with this 
cargo: 203 prime fur seal skins, 2317 hair seal skins. 



WHALING AND SEALING 61 

122 sea otter (prime) skins, 80 tortoise shells, 629 
hair pup skins, 220 fur pup skins and 102 goat skins. 
In 1835 several crafts ari-ived; one the Penguin, B. F. 
Ash captain, 82 33-45 tons, had 1215 fur skins for 
C. P. Williams, 800 fur skins for F. Pendleton, 350 
hair skins for C. P. Williams, and 890 fur skins and 
350 hair skins consigned to S. Lawrence from the Bet- 
sey Tahua and Ann Howard. In later days the 
schooners Express, Thomas Hunt and Charles Shearer 
and the brig Henry Trowbridge went on sealing voy- 
ages from Stonington. 



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CHAPTER IX 

IN THE "fifties" (bY GEORGE D. STAXTOx) 

To give a historical sketch of the borough of Ston- 
ington and its inhabitants in the "Fifties" as it may 
have appeared to a looker-on from Venice is a difficult 
task. To begin this sketch, perhaps it will be best to 
consider first the business pursuits conducted by the 
wide-awake and enterprising men of that period. 

The principal interest then centred in whale fish- 
eries. There were at that time seventeen ships and 
barks sent from this port, with a total tonnage of five 
thousand, three hundred and twenty tons — an average 
of about three hundred tons for each vessel. Of these 
Charles P. Williams and John F. Trumbull owned 
each, or represented, eight vessels, and F. Pendleton 
& Co. owned one. This list comprises only those ves- 
sels hailing and sailing from this port. There were, 
however, thirty-one whaling ships, brigs and schooners 
sailing from Mystic, which was in the Stonington 
marine district. The officers and men who manned 
the ships belonging to this port were not all natives or 
residents of the borough. Many of these were obtained 
from other ports, and quite a large proportion of 
the crews were shipped at the Western islands, many 
of whom on their return from sea made their perma- 




"Squire" Pomeroy House 

Built three-quarters of a century ago. Now the home of 
Frank Trumbull and sisters 




Doorway of John F. Trumbull Homestead 
Main Street 



IN THE "FIFTIES" 65 

nent abode here. Quite a number of Indians were 
secured from the Indian reservations in North Ston- 
ington and Ledyard who shipped as seamen. In fact 
it may be truthfully stated in this connection that the 
tribes in those reservations were decimated and be- 
came nearly extinguished through having been so gen- 
erally employed in whaling. They were reported to 
have made excellent seamen ; but their contact with the 
white sailors and their proneness to indulgence in the 
white man's fire water and vices have nearly obliterated 
their race. In alluding to the men employed as sail- 
ors in the whale fisheries, it may not be out of place to 
refer to the lamentable fact of the alleged practice of 
some shipping agents in those days of securing men for 
the whaling voyages by inveigling young men into liq- 
uor saloons and plying them with liquor until they 
were stupefied under the influence of drink, and per- 
suading them to sign shipping articles, after which 
they were immediately carried on board a ship, and 
when they aroused from their stupor they would find 
themselves many miles at sea. Many stories, too true, 
are told of how poor Jack was thus kidnapped and 
hustled on board ship, and how on his return he was 
cheated out of a large portion of his hard earned share 
of the proceeds of the voyage. This is the way a set- 
tlement with Jack is reputed to have been made in 
many cases. The cost was exorbitantly charged 
against him by the shipping agents for his outfit — "slop 
chest," containing clothing, needles, thread etc. This 
was about the way accounts would be finally settled 



66 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

with him, as related by one who knew: "Ought is an 
ought and two is a two — six cents coming to me and 
nought coming to A'ou." 

In the way of manufacturing estabhshments there 
was the stone factory building erected by Hon. John 
F. Trumbull in 1851. It was first used for the man- 
ufacture of horseshoe nails, which was continued but 
for a short time as it was claimed that there were too 
many imperfect nails, and that the best of them were 
inferior to those made by hand. 

There was a rope walk on Main street for the man- 
ufacture of cordage and fish lines. As to mer- 
chants, the borough was well supplied with enterpris- 
ing business men who carried a large stock of dry 
goods and groceries to meet the demands not onh^ of 
the local community but of the surrounding country 
as well. 

In those days the merchant's only way of obtaining 
and replenishing his stock of goods from New York or 
Providence was by sailing packet. Among the lead- 
ing merchants here in that period there were Samuel 
Chesebrough, Peleg Hancox, F. Pendleton & Co., 
J. E. Smith & Co. , Enoch Chesebrough, Simon Carew, 
John C. Hayes and Hewitt & Hull. Elisha Faxon, Jr. , 
kept stationer}' and newspapers at his store on Main 
street. Simon Carew had quite a considerable trade 
with the Block Islanders, and a story is told of a resident 
of the island who had purchased a bill of goods of 
Simon, and gave his note for the amount and was 
heard to remark as he left the store "Well, thank 



IN THE "FIFTIES" 67 

God, that bill is paid." History has not recorded 
whether or no the note was ever converted into cash. 
This includes about all of the mercantile establishments 
that occur to me, with the exception that I may men- 
tion that Russell A. Denison had a cabinet shop 
and kept a limited stock of furniture. 

Of the practising physicians here there were Drs. 
George E. Palmer and his son Amos, and the Drs. 
William Hyde, Senior and Junior. Benjamin Pomeroy 
and Franklin A. Palmer, Esq., represented the legal 
fraternity, William Woodbridge kept a high school, 
and Dr. David S. Hart taught a limited number of 
pupils in the higher branches, preparing young men for 
entrance to college. The old Wadawanuck Hotel 
was for a short time converted into a seminary for 
young ladies under the management of Rev. Harvey 
D. Sackett, assisted by a corps of accomplished young 
lady teachers. Miss Lucy Ann Sheffield also kept a 
select school for younger misses and bo^'s. Miss Ellen 
Kirby kept a school for small children, on Main street. 

Freeman Wallace kept clocks, watches and jewelry 
on Gold street, which gave that street its name, Fred- 
erick Moser kept watches and jewelr}' in a stoi-e in the 
south end of the old "Arcade," so called, and the 
north end of the building was utilized for a post office 
for several years by Gen. Franklin Williams. Wil- 
liam Higgins also had a bake shop in the rear part of 
the same building, and he delivered his cakes, bread 
and pies around the borough from a large basket car- 
ried on his arm. There were two hotels, one called 



68 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

the Steamboat Hotel, kept by C. B. Capron, and the 
other called the American House, kept by R. R. 
Barker, both hotels being on Gold street, facing the 
railroad square, the steamboat landing and the Ston- 
ington and Providence railroad depot. 



CHAPTER X 



SOCIETY BEFORE THE WAR 



(In a paper read by request a few years ago before the Stonington 
Historical and Genealogical Society, Miss Emma W. Palmer gave 
a pleasant account of the social life of Stonington in the years 
just preceding the Civil War. It is unfortunate that there is not 
space in this volume for the entire paper, but as much of it as 
possible is comprised in the following chapter.) 

The generation now growing up can hardly realize 
as they look around them what the dear old place was 
in those days of fair women and brave men, who either 
lived here or were attracted hither by a good hotel, 
such as the old Wadawanuck then was. Even before my 
day I remember the glorious times the young people 
had, led by Henry Clay Trumbull, Ephraim Williams, 
Amos and William Palmer, Edward Denison and 
others. There were hops, clambakes, tableaux and 
sleighing parties. And then riding parties, with Bes- 
sie Williams at the head. Few could excel her, or 
keep up with her, in this her favorite amusement. 
These were the daj^s of fine saddle horses, and those 
who did not own them could always be supplied from 
the hotel stable then kept by Horace Lewis on the 
ground now occupied by the house of Mr. and Mrs. 
Henry R. Palmer. 



70 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

Many were the runaway couples that were helped on 
their way rejoicing by the fast horses from this stable, 
the terminus generally being Norwich, as otherwise 
they had to cross the Thames. Sometimes would come 
the avenging Nemesis in the shape of the angry father, 
close at their heels, and then all, even to the servants, 
conspired to detain him as long as they could, to give 
the pursued a chance. At one time there were so many 
runaway marriages, owing to the stringent laws in 
Rhode Island, that Stonington was called Gretna 
Green. 

These were the days of the Pattons, the Reverend 
Doctor and his two handsome daughters ; the Misses 
Dwight of Norwich, the Warings, the Van Rensselaers 
and others. The MacNeills and Whistlers also lived 
here and always had more or less company. Mary 
Trumbull, afterwards Mrs. William C. Prime, was a 
great favorite, and Bessie Williams was the head-centre 
of all the fun. Once she arranged with Henry Trum- 
bull that he should go for her early to take her to ride 
in a wheelbarrow. He was there promptly, and I 
think she went. 

The Wadawanuck Hotel, so well kept, was filled 
with the creme de la creme of many cities ; all seeking 
then, as now, the pure air and cool breezes of the sea- 
shore. Time would fail me to tell of the Vintons, 
Slaters, Wilmerdings, Palmers, Dixons, Burnhams and 
others who year after year came to this little place and 
not only enjoyed it themselves but included the many 
gay young people of the village in their enjoyments ; 



SOCIETY "BEFORE THE WAR" 71 

and I am proud to say that none of all the bright as- 
semblage could eclipse the handsome girls of Stoning- 
ton, noted for their beauty and also for their wit. 
There were Bessie Williams, Emmeline Williams, Eliza 
Trumbull, Abby and Helen and Sallie Day, Carrie 
Champlin and many others. In those days Walnut 
Grove, the lovely home of the Days, was always full of 
gay young people, and so were the Williams and 
Champlin houses, and our own home, all filled with a 
gay and happy crowd eager to enter into any fun or 
pleasure that came our way. 

The Wadawanuck bath-house, situated just a little 
way west of the hotel and reached by a long wooden 
wharf, was popular in those days. It had a large open 
space in the middle for bathers, with dressing-rooms a- 
round and opening on it ; and at high tide every day 
down would troop the gay crowd, each paying a small 
fee for the bathing privilege. I remember my cousin 
Eliza MacNeill was considered the best swimmer at that 
time, although at an earlier date Miss Sarah Fanning 
carried off the palm. The bath-house gradually got 
out of repair, and out of vogue as well, as Watch Hill 
bathing became the rage ; and at last it ended its days 
in smoke. Having drifted from its moorings it was 
beached at .Nat's Point and set on fire. 

It was not only in summer that we had good times. 
There were the famous sewing societies of the Congre- 
gational and Episcopal Churches, when the ladies met 
in the afternoon and sewed, and stayed to tea, and the 
young people came after, and had such a good time ! 



72 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

The very recollection of those teas even now makes my 
mouth water. Such piles of delicious rusk, cut very 
thin and buttered, baked in a pan peculiar to itself, 
something like the present brownbread tin ; why I can 
see them now as if it were yesterday ! And the cake — 
well, I can only say you don't see such cake now: al- 
mond and citron and cocoanut and rich composition and 
raised cake, every kind you could think of. Even the 
sponge cake was better somehow than it is now, and 
each housekeeper had her own specialty that she was 
proud to make when it was her turn to entertain the 
society. There were so many hospitable homes in those 
days that seldom was more than one meeting held in a 
winter at any one house. 

At last they got to be regular parties, much to the 
distress of the older members. Some of the 3'ounger 
ones often went off in a room by themselves and indulged 
in ghost and robber stories in the twilight, or 
blind-man's holiday, until they really were frightened 
and were glad to come back to the lights and the elder 
ones. Old Mrs. Dawes was a favorite character, and 
we used to love to crowd around her and hear her talk 
of her experiences, of her success as a matchmaker — dear, 
dear, what good old times those were when there was 
no fuss and feathers, but good old-fashioned hospital- 
ity ! If strangers were visiting you you were invited to 
bring them, for there was always plenty and the tables 
fairl}^ groaned with the good things. The coffee was 
so good, real old-fashioned boiled coffee, with plenty of 




Two Old Houses on Main Street 

At the left, the Eells House, about 1785; at the right, the Col. Joseph 

Smith House, 1800 




Ephraim Williams Homestead, 1840 
Now the Home of Dr. Charles M. Williams 



SOCIETY "BEFORE THE WAR" 73 

cream in it. as clear as amber and as strong as it was 
possible to make it without having it bitter. 

There used to be grand occasions when we could 
wear our best bib and tucker, and how well and be- 
comingly all were dressed, even the old ladies, so dif- 
ferent from the present style. Mrs. McEwen was 
Mary Da}^ then, and I often laugh over one of her 
experiences. It was the style to wear the hair plastered 
down over the ears as smooth as it could be made, 
and, to keep it in place, we sometimes used the black 
pomade that comes in sticks. I had plastered mine 
down well with it and so had she, each of course un- 
known to the other, and in the course of the evening, 
it being warm, in each case the hair had been pushed 
aside and there was a strongly defined line of black on 
each of our faces that occasioned much merriment. 

Another laughable thing I remember, that struck me 
so forcibly that even after the lapse of so many years it 
comes back to me just as funny as ever. A very nice 
but prim old lady quietly put a doughnut in her ca- 
pacious pocket with her ball of yarn, and in the course 
of the evening, just when all was quiet and she was 
placidly knitting, out flew the doughnut, rolling over 
to the other side of the room, where, thinking it was 
her ball, one of the young gallants rushed to pick it 
up, much to his own and the poor old lady's discomfit- 
ure. Her face I can see now as he presented the 
doughnut to her. 

Miss Palmer describes the church fairs, held some- 
times in the old sail loft, which stands west of Mr. 



74 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

Jerome S. Anderson's house. At these fairs as much 
as eight hundred or a thousand dollars was some- 
times netted. She tells also of entertainments for the 
benefit of the Book Club, at one of which a charming 
feature was a series of tableaux, with attractive 
young women of the village impersonating famous char- 
acters or works of art. She says ' 'there were Hannah 
Stanton, and Dina and Kate Stanton, Mary and Lucy 
Babcock, Jennie Burnham, Julia Palmer and many 
others whose names I cannot now recall. Each and 
all of the tableaux were so beautiful and so well done 
that the audience scarcely breathed until the curtain 
dropped. . Hops at the hotel and balls and parties at 
the different houses were frequent and most enjoyable, 
with plenty of beaux, if not at hand, then imported ; 
and many a man of wealth, fame and rank has figured 
in these scenes and has looked back upon these days as 
the happiest in his life. James van Alen the elder, 
Colonel Vose, James and Will Whistler, Daniel Ulh- 
man. Colonel Slocomb and Count de Choiseul all have 
figured more or less in these gay scenes or added their 
share to the general fund of enjoyment." 

Miss Palmer closes her paper with the description of 
an oldtime party given at her home in 1859, one of the 
pleasantest gatherings ever held in the historic old 
house. She says, "I have tried several times to get up 
another like it during the long winter evenings, but 
have met with very little encouragement. "It's too 
much trouble ; we would rather play cards, ' ' is the gen- 
eral verdict. 



CHAPTER XI 

WHISTLER IN STONINGTON (bY RIETA B. PALMEr) 

Although the artist James Adams MacNeill Whist- 
ler spent but a few years of his childhood and boyhood 
in Stonington, there are people living here to-day who 
well remember the slight figure, brown curly hair and 
alert face of the eccentric and lovable young man. 

Whistler's mother was Anna MacNeill, a sister of 
Mrs. Dr. George E. Palmer, (mother of Mrs. Dr. George 
D. Stanton), and a southerner by birth. She married 
Major George Washington Whistler, a graduate of 
West Point and a civil engineer, who was a widower 
with three children, George, Joseph, (who died in 
childhood), and Deborah, who became Lady Seymour 
Haden. Major AVhistler was employed on the Balti- 
more and Ohio and other railroads, and was engineer of 
locks and canals at Lowell, Mass., in 1834, when his 
son James was born. Two years later the second son, 
William Gibbs, was born and the family moved to 
Stonington in 1837 and established their home in a 
pleasant house on Main street. 

Major Whistler had previously built the railroad 
from Stonington to Providence, (in 1835-37), and 
old residents of Stonington not many years ago recalled 
the carriage, fitted with car wheels and drawn by a 



76 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

horse, which took the family by rail to the Episcopal 
church in Westerly on Sundays, there'^being no church 
of that communion in Stonington at the time. 

The Whistlers lived here until 1840, when they 
moved to Springfield, Mass., where Major Whistler was 
engaged in building the Boston, Springfield and Al- 
bany Railroad. 

In 1842, Czar Nicholas I. of Russia sent commission- 
ers through Europe and America to find the best 
method and best man for the construction of a railroad 
from St. Petersburg to Moscow. They chose Major 
Whistler for the work. 

This was a great honor, and the salary excellent. 
He started for Russia at once, leaving his family in 
Stonington with Dr. Palmer, whose wife, as stated, 
was Mrs. Whistler's sister. The next year the family 
followed him to Russia, where they remained until 
Major Whistler's death in 1849. The widow and her 
two sons, James and William, returned to Stonington, 
and Major Whistler was buried from the little Epis- 
copal church he had so generously helped to build. 

Miss Emma W. Palmer says in a paper written for 
the Historical Society that "James at this time was 
tall and slight (he was fifteen years old) with a pen- 
sive, delicate face, shaded b}^ soft brown curls, one lock 
of which even then fell over his forehead. In later 
years he was very proud of this lock, which turned grey 
while yet young, and this gave him a striking appear- 
ance. ' ' 

In the years of increasing fame and eccentricity 



WHISTLER IN STONINGTON 77 

he was inordinately proud of his curly hair, and the 
one white lock, which he said should be the first thing 
seen upon his entrance in a drawing room. 

Mrs. Whistler soon took her boys to Pomfret to 
place them in the excellent school at that place man- 
aged by a West Point man. And there they remained 
until James, or "Jamie," "Jim" or "Jimmy," as he 
was variously called, was old enough to enter West 
Point, following the example of his father. At both 
schools he was very popular. No one could resist his 
mirth, though he was frequently thoughtless and al- 
ways "getting into scrapes" and being helped out of 
them by his devoted friends. 

His fondness for drawing evinced itself at four years 
of age, and he was always making sketches in his school 
books, mostly caricatures. He was asked to do some 
pictures for a fair in Stonington, and though he made 
them very absurd they sold well. He was habitually 
obliging, his answer to all requests being, "Oh! any- 
thing for a quiet life. ' ' It seems a pity that this gen- 
ial kindness did not continue into his later years. 

He was thoroughly unsuited to the life at West 
Point. He could never be induced to exert himself, to 
hurry or to conform to what seemed to him foolish dis- 
cipline, so he quitted the academy, leaving many 
stories of his pranks and witty sayings behind him. He 
was always exceedingly proud of having been a West 
Point man and spoke often of his experience at the 
school. 

From West Point he went to Baltimore, where he 



78 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

stayed only a short time in the locomotive works owned 
by a relative ; then he had a position in the United 
States Coast Surve}^ where he made Government maps 
with infinite care. This was a little more to his liking, 
and the preparing and etching of plates was good 
training for his later work. From here he went to 
Paris, where his real life as an artist begins. 

We will not attempt to follow his subsequent career, 
well known to all and having no further connection 
with Stouington. His fame did not come at once. 
He struggled hard, making a name for himself slowly 
and painfully. Though there are varying opinions 
about the value of his art, he is generally acknowledged 
a great painter and etcher. Some of his early paint- 
ings and etchings have been owned by people in Ston- 
ington, where it is pleasant to picture him as a gay, 
happy boy, showing promise of genius, and with noth- 
ing of that attitude of the poseur which afterward qual- 
ified his charm, and giving no evidence of that bitter 
tongue which so easily made him enemies in later life. 
William M. Chase says that it was impossible for any 
man to live long in harmony with him, and that he had 
two distinct personalities. In public he was "the fop, 
the cynic, the brilliant, vain and careless idler;" but 
the Whistler of the studio was ' 'the earnest, tireless, 
sombre worker, a very slave to his art, a bitter foe to 
all pretence and sham, an embodiment of simplicity al- 
most to the point of diffidence, an incarnation of earn- 
estness and sincerity of purpose. ' ' 

We have heard so much of his affectations that it is 



WHISTLER IN STONINGTON 79 

a relief to think of his less complex years of youth, 
watched over and loved by a saint-like mother, whose 
portrait, so beautifully painted by an always devoted 
son, now hangs in the Luxembourg galleries at Paris. 



CHAPTER XII 



THREE DISASTROUS FIRES 



Within a period of seven years — 1836-1843 — three 
disastrous fires occurred in Stonington Borough, all of 
them in the same general locality. 

The first broke out in December, 1836, (according 
to information given the writer b}^ Henry Clay Trum- 
bull in August, 1902), starting in a cooper shop on 
the wharf southwest of what is now Cannon square. 
It swept the hotel on Water street, where Captain 
Samuel B. Pendleton's house now stands, and also the 
tavern (the "Swan Hotel") which occupied the site 
of the house now owned by Mrs. Benjamin C. Brown, 
on the south side of the square. The hotel on the 
west side of Water street was kept by Ezra Chesebro, 
who in November of the next year became the first 
landlord of the new Wadawanuck Hotel. 

The second fire, the largest in the history of the 
borough, occurred on April 2, 1837. The Providence 
Journal of April 6, 1837, said: "Afire occurred at 
Stonington on Sunday morning last, (supposed to be 
the work of an incendiary), which destroyed nineteen 
buildings, most of them stores, and injured two others. " 

This disastrous blaze started in a cooper shop on the 
"Union Store" wharf, and spread with irresistible speed 



House of 

Miss Carolinp: 

A. Smith 



Congrega- 
tional 
Parsonage 







THREE DISASTROUS FIRES 81 

and fury eastward to Pel eg Hancox's store, which 
occupied the site of the present store of James H. 
Stivers, Captain Charles P. Williams's house just op- 
posite, and a row of stores to the south, on the site of 
the present Arcade. None of the buildings named 
could be saved. The flames for a time isolated upon 
the wharf five residents of the borough, one of whom 
was Dr. David S. Hart. 

When the fire broke out there was no fire engine 
with which to combat it ; the men of the place formed 
a long line with their leather buckets and wooden pails, 
and hurried water from the harbor to the burning build- 
ings. The old Colonial house on the southeast corner 
of Water and Wall streets with its high steps and iron 
railing was saved, after a desperate and gallant effort, 
by the spreading of wet blankets on the roof and the 
constant dampening of these. Steam fire engines were 
unheard of at the time ; hydrants also were unknown. 
It was after this fire that the old Wadawanuck engine 
was purchased by the borough. 

There is now in the possession of the Stonington 
Historical and Genealogical Society a letter (the gift 
of Mr. Stivers) written on the day succeeding the fire 
by Zebulon Hancox, Jr., in which the writer, then a 
clerk in the store of Peleg Hancox, described to his 
employer, who was temporarily in New York, the de- 
vastation wrought and the measures he had taken on 
his own responsibility to provide for the future conduct 
of the business. It shows the young clerk as a bright, 
efficient business man, quite in accord with the tradi- 



82 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

tions that have come down to us of his earlier and 
happier days, before he became a picturesque recluse 
in his cottage by the shore. 

The letter reads as follows : 

Stonington, April 3, 1837 

Mr. Peleg Hancox, 

Sir : A fire broke out on Saturday night about 
4 o'clock in Charles P. Williams's cooper shop, which 
consumed your store and all the stores between the old 
Doctor Lording store, your house, Mrs. Carew's on 
the north and Frank Pendleton's store and Captain 
Amy's on the south. I have saved most all of the 
goods in the front store and they are safe in my house. 
I don't believe there will be more than a hundred dol- 
lars worth of goods missing from the front store. The 
fire was so rapid we had not time to save more. Your 
house was cleared of furniture, but we saved that and 
the old store on the wharf and A^our family is all returned 
and comfortable. Your books and notes are all safe. 

I have engaged Mr. Nathan Wheeler not to let Ben 
Wright's store until you return. Mr. Charles P. Wil- 
liams's house and barn are burnt, but he has saved most 
of his furniture. The bank (the present custom house) 
is saved and the rope walk. (This stood on the east 
side of Main street. ) 

We have found most of the articles taken from your 
house and they are returned. Your family are in good 
spirits, but want you here. 

Yours in haste, 

Zebulon Hancox, Jr. 



THREE DISASTROUS FIRES 83 

At that time Mr. Peleg Hancox lived in the home- 
stead just north of his store, and so fierce was the heat 
in the neighborhood during the fire that most of his 
household goods, as stated in the above letter, were 
removed from the house. When the fire was extin- 
guished the infant son of the family was nowhere to be 
found. His mother had entrusted the eleven-month 
child to somebody at the height of the excitement, but 
to whom she could not remember. Some time after- 
ward he was discovered wrapped up safe and sound, in 
the little yard in front of the Hyde house just south 
of Dr. C. O. Maine's present residence at the corner 
of Water and Harmony streets. The helpless infant 
was Nathaniel Hancox, justly beloved in Stonington 
for his keen wit and jovial companionship to the day 
of his death a few years ago. 

Four or five merchants, among them "Uncle Peleg," 
afterward opened shop in the sail-loft building on the 
Union Store wharf. Mr. Hancox's stock included 
some fine velvets and laces, strange goods for such a 
rough environment. 

The third fire to which reference has been made oc- 
curred in the winter of 1842-43 and destroyed the 
stores of A. S. Prentice, (irreverently nicknamed 
"Apple Sass" by reason of his initials), Elisha Faxon 
and Captain Francis Pendleton. These stores stood, in 
the order given, from north to south, on the space now 
occupied by Mr. Bindloss's coal office and Oscar F. 
Pendleton's "Brick Store." 

It may be added here that the Eagle Hotel, which 



84 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

stood at the northwest corner of Water and Church 
streets, was burnt in 1862. On April 20th of that 
year, the freemen of the borough voted to compensate 
Horace Lewis "for damage to his onion patch by the 
fire engines and people at the recent Eagle Hotel fire. ' ' 
From January 1, 1883, to October 6, 1894, during 
the term of Erastus S. Chesebro as chief engineer of the 
Stonington Fire Department, twenty-five fires were re- 
ported in Stonington. The assessed valuation of the 
buildings involved was $64,850; the fire loss was only 
$4310. 

From October 22, 1894, to July 1, 1902, during 
the term of George A. Slade as chief engineer, fifty-two 
fires occurred. The valuation of the threatened build- 
ings and contents was $323,300; the fire loss was only 
$20,338 or six per cent. 

From November 19, 1903, to December 25, 1912, 
during the term of Edward P. Teed as chief engineer, 
thirty-two fires for which alarms were sounded threat- 
ened buildings valued, with their contents, at $138,- 
450. The fire loss was only $11,950, or less than 
nine per cent. 

These figures speak volumes for the efficiency of the 
Stonington Fire Department. 



CHAPTER XIII 

STONINGTON NEWSPAPERS 

The first Stonington newspaper was published 
in the eighteenth century by Samuel Trumbull, son of 
John Trumbull, a newspaper publisher and printer of 
Norwich. Mr. Trumbull came to this place in 1798 
and on October 2d of that year issued the first number 
of the Journal of the Times, a diminutive sheet with 
the motto: 

" Pliant as reeds where streams of freedom glide, 
Firm as the hills to stem oppression's tide." 

Mr. Trumbull was an elder brother of John F. Trum- 
bull and lived on the site of the house now owned and 
occupied by Mrs. Lucius N. Palmer on the east side of 
Wadawanuck square. In 1800 the title of the paper 
was changed to the Impartial Journal. The Journal 
supported Thomas Jefferson and was continued until 
1805, when Mr. Trumbull abandoned journalism for 
other business. 

The next newspaper was "America's Friend," pub- 
lished by John Munson, who came to Stonington from 
New Haven. It is thought that it was not continued 
for more than a year or two. 

In March, 1824, Samuel A. Seabury came to the 
borough from Long Island and issued one number of 
the Stonington Chronicle. This first issue was the last. 



86 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

for the editor died almost immediately afterward. 

Within a few months, however, on July 28, 1824, 
William Storer, Jr., who had been a newspaper pub- 
lisher at Caldwell, New York, put out Vol. I. No. 1 
of the Yankee, which had for its motto this unimpeach- 
able legend : ' Where liberty dwells there is my country. ' 
Three years later the Yankee became the Stonington 
Telegraph, under which name it continued till July 22, 
1829. Nearly complete files of these two papers are 
in the possession of the writer, having descended to him 
from Dr. David S. Hart, who had carefully preserved 
them through many years. 

The Stonington Phenix and the Stonington Chronicle 
had brief successive existences in 1832-34. Their pub- 
lishers were Charles W. Denison and William H, Bur- 
leigh. Immediately following them, the Stonington 
Spectator, issued by Thomas H. Peabody, continued 
for six months. Franklin A. Palmer published the 
Stonington Advertiser for a time in the fifties, and 
Henry Clay Trumbull and others were associated, about 
the same period, in the ephemeral publication of 
"LuxMundi." 

On November 27, 1869, Jerome S. Anderson issued 
the first number of the Stonington Mirror, with which 
was later consolidated the Mystic Journal (established 
in 1859). These papers, identical except for their 
headings, have had a continuous existence to the pres- 
ent day and are now issued by the Stonington Pub- 
lishing Company with Jerome S. Anderson, Jr., as the 
editor. 



STONINGTON NEWSPAPERS 87 

This list of Stonington newspapers is not absolutely 
complete, but it comprises all the sheets that have 
had more than a brief or inconsequent career. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE DISCOVERY OF ANTARCTICA 

To Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer of Stonington be- 
longs the honor of discovering the Antarctic Continent. 
He was a mere boy at the time, only twenty-one or 
twenty-two years of age, but nevertheless the com- 
mand of the sloop Hero had been entrusted to him. 
The Hero was one of a little squadron of Stonington 
vessels sent out to the sealing grounds in the South 
Shetlands in 1820. The fleet consisted of the brig 
Frederick, Capt. Benjamin Pendleton, the senior com- 
mander; brig Hersilia, Capt. James P. Sheffield; 
schooner Express, Capt. E. Williams ; schooner Free Gift, 
Capt. F. Dunbar, and sloop Hero, Captain Palmer. 

The vessels reached Yankee harbor. Deception Island, 
during the season of 1820-1821, and from that place a 
lookout on a day of unusually clear atmosphere discov- 
ered from his post aloft a volcano in operation. The 
fiery mountain was many miles distant to the south- 
ward, but Captain Palmer, despite his youth, was dis- 
patched in the Hero, a mere shallop, to examine the 
region. 

This adventurous voyage into the southern seas is 
worth the attention of the poets, and indeed one poet, 
the late Rev. Frederic Denison, has sung the episode in 




" The Hill," the Denisox Homestead 

Built by Rev. Hezekiah Woodruff, about 1795, and Remodelled by 

Edward P. York, 1912 




THE Lower End oi Main Street 



DISCOVERY OF ANTARCTICA 89 

rhythmic verse. Here was a boy hardly out of his teens, 
in command of a 45-ton sloop, starting on a voyage of 
discovery across an uncharted ocean, with only a smok- 
ing volcano to guide him forward. In one way the 
voyage was not productive of great results, for Captain 
Palmer found little except rocks and ice in the volcanic 
countr3\ There was hardly any animal life and no 
vegetation. But as a matter of geographical interest 
the voyage was of first importance, because it brought 
a new continent to light. 

Only within a few years has it been absolutely de- 
termined that there is a mass of land of truly continental 
proportions around the South Pole, but the credit 
for the discovery of Antarctica belongs to 'Cap'n Nat. ' 
Columbus discovered America, even though he thought 
he had landed in India, and although he never set foot 
on the North American Continent. 

There is some uncertainty as to whether the land 
visited by the Stonington sailor was part of the central 
continental mass or separated from it by what is now 
called Belgica Strait, but the question is of little real 
importance. The Belgian expedition of a few years 
ago determined to perpetuate the name of Captain 
Palmer in the region by attaching it to the archipelago 
west of the strait, whereas for many years ' 'Palmer 
Land" was the accepted designation of a part at least 
of what is now called "Graham Land" on British 
charts. 

Captain Palmer found the region sterile and moun- 
tainous, and difficult to land upon. It was almost cov- 



90 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

ered with snow and ice, although it was midsummer 
when he visited it. 

On his way back to the little squadron at Deception 
Island the Hero was becalmed not far from the Antarc- 
tic shore, and when the fog that had enshrouded the 
sloop cleared away, Captain Palmer was surprised to 
find that he had run between a Russian frigate and 
sloop-of-war. Thereupon he hoisted the Stars and 
Stripes and awaited developments. 

The Russians set their own colors and sent a boat to 
the Hero, inviting Captain Palmer to come aboard. 
He accepted the invitation and was told that the com- 
mander, Captain Bellingshausen, had been sent by the 
Emperor of Russia on a voyage of discovery around 
the world. Captain Palmer reported to him his own 
prior discovery of Antarctica, and the Russian com- 
mander was so impressed with the sight of a youth in 
command of a slight vessel far from home and on such 
a mission that he named the new-found country Pal- 
mer Land. 

Captain Palmer's own account, as recited by Hon. 
Frederic Bush, United States consul at Hong Kong, 
includes the following interesting note : 

"I gave him (the Russian commander) an account 
of my voyage, tonnage of sloop, number of men, and 
general details, when he said: 'How far south have 
you been.?' I gave him the latitude and longitude of 
my lowest point, and told him what I had discovered. 
He, rose, much agitated, begging I would produce my 
log book and chart, with which request I complied, 



DISCOVERY OF ANTARCTICA 91 

and a boat was sent for it. . . When the log book 
and chart were laid upon the table he examined them 
carefully without comment, then rose from his seat, 
asking : 'What do I see and what do I hear from a 
boy in his teens — that he is commander of a tiny boat 
of the size of a launch of my frigate, has pushed his 
way to the pole through the storm and ice and sought 
the point I, in command of one of the best appointed 
fleets at the disposal of my august master, have for 
three long, weary, anxious years searched day and 
night for?' With his hand on my head, he added: 
'What shall I say to my master? What will he think 
of me? Be that as it may, my grief is your joy. Wear 
your laurels, with my sincere prayers for your welfare. ' " 



CHAPTER XV 



FANNING S VOYAGES 



Although the discovery of the Antarctic Continent 
by Nathaniel B. Palmer was the most spectacular geo- 
graphical achievement of any Stonington sailor, 
Edmund Fanning sailed several long voyages that 
brought him a great reputation as a navigator, made 
many interesting discoveries and shed a brilliant lustre 
on his native place. He was born at Stonington on 
the 16th of July, 1769. 

Fanning came of a prominent Stonington family, 
though unfortunately the name long since disappeared 
from the town. At the age of fourteen he first went 
to sea, as a cabin boy; at eighteen, in June, 1797, 
he was put in command of a merchant vessel, the brig 
Betsey, and set forth on a journey around the world. 
Although the brig started from New York, Stonington 
was visited for the purpose of obtaining a New Eng- 
land crew. In his famous book, "Voyages Round the 
World, (1833), Captain Fanning says: 

"When off Watch Hill point, she was brought to, 
in order to discharge the pilot, and the occasion was 
embraced as the best suited to ascertain the minds 
and inclinations of the seamen. All hands were there- 
fore mustered on deck, aft, and liberty was given all 



FANNING'S VOYAGES 93 

such as were disinclined to proceed on the voyage, to 
all those who were unwilling to encounter the dangers, 
privations and sufferings usually attendant on similar 
expeditions, now to return with the pilot. Notwith- 
standing this, no one seemed so inclined, but all to a 
man answered, their desire was to proceed on the voy- 
age, confirming the same by three hearty cheers. And 
here it may be remarked, that a more orderly and 
cheerful crew never sailed round the world in any ves- 
sel. The pilot accordingly returned by himself." 

This is a significant picture of the sturdy class of sea- 
faring men that Stonington produced more than a hun- 
dred years ago. 

It would be impossible in the brief space that can be 
given in this volume to the achievements of Fanning 
to follow him in his several voyages through the seven 
seas. In the mid-Pacific he discovered many islands, 
however, of which some mention must be made. 

The New International Encyclopedia says of the 
* 'Fanning Islands" that they were named for the Ston- 
ington sailor, who discovered them in 1798; and it 
describes them as being ' 'a group of small islands in 
the Pacific, scattered about a segment of the equator, 
lying between longitudes 157 degrees and 163 degrees 
W. ' ' The area of the group it places at about 260 
square miles, the chief islands being Christmas, Fan- 
ning, Jarvis, Washington and Palmyra. "Since 
1888," says the cyclopedia, "they have belonged to 
Great Britain. The population is estimated at 200." 

Concerning the last-named, Palmyra Island, much 



94 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

international interest has recent!}' been aroused, owing 
to its annexation by the United States, in which fact 
we may take a sentimental pleasure, for surely at least 
one of the many islands discovered by Fanning ought 
to be under the Stars and Stripes. 

A glance at the map of the Pacific Ocean will show 
that Palmyra Island lies almost directh^ west Tof the 
Panama Canal. Its strategic importance is therefore 
obvious, and the action of the United States in pro- 
claiming sovereignty over it at this time is easily com- 
prehensible. 

In connection with his discovery of Palm3U'a, Cap- 
tain Fanning says he turned in, at nine o'clock in the 
evening of June ] 4, 1798, but in less than an hour found 
himself, "without being sensible of any movement or 
exertion in getting there, on the upper steps of the 
companion-way." Suddenly he awoke, exchanged a 
few words with the officer of the deck and returned to 
his berth, meditating on the strangeness of the incident, 
as he never walked in his sleep. A second and a third 
time he found himself mysteriously on deck, but the 
last time he had unconsciously put on his outer gar- 
ments and hat. "It was then, " he says, "I conceived 
some danger was nigh at hand, and determined upon 
laying the ship to for the night ; she was at this time 
going at the rate of five or six miles per hour." The 
officer of the deck was clearly surprised at his com- 
mander's perturbation, but Captain Fanning assured 
him that he was well and possessed of his senses ; only 
"something, what it was I could not tell, required 



TANNING'S VOYAGES 95 

that these precautionary measures should be studiously 
observed." When day dawned the breakers of Pal- 
myra Island were discerned due ahead, only half an 
hour from the spot where the ship was laid to for the 
night. The commander saw in the incident "an evi- 
dence of the Divine superintendence." 

Captain Fanning describes Palmyra as a coral reef, 
or shoal shaped like a crescent, eighteen miles in length 
from north to south. He did not find a foot of ground, 
rock or sand, above water where a boat might be hauled 
up. A later visitor put its length at nine miles and 
credited it with two lagoons, in one of which there 
was water twenty fathoms deep, while on the northwest 
side of the island he found ' 'anchorage three-quarters 
of a mile from the reef, in eighteen fathoms." 

Hawaii proclaimed its ownership of Palmyra in 1882, 
but six years later Great Britain annexed it, together 
with various other islands that Fanning discovered. 
Palmyra now reverts to us by virtue of our annexation 
of Hawaii. 

It is a pity we ever abandoned our claim to these 
mid-Pacific islands. They were ours in the beginning 
by right of discovery. They bear the name of our 
Stonington world-voyager and are his best monument, 
but except for Palmyra they are under the British flag. 
If we possessed them now, we would not lightly let 
them go; but they are England's and their value to 
our transatlantic cousins is indicated in the news that 
the Admiralty intends to fortify them. 



CHAPTER XVI 



TALES AND TRADITIONS 



Now that the concluding pages of this book are 
at hand, it seems as if many important or enhvening 
matters had been neglected, although of course it would 
be impossible in so small a volume to set down every 
salient incident in the history of the place or relate any 
considerable number of the tales and traditions that 
are interwoven with its more serious record. A few 
of the latter, however, should be preserved for the 
sake of their mild and pleasant oldtime flavor. 

One of these tales comes to mind at the moment. It 
was told by the late William C. Stanton of Westerly : 

A certain citizen of Stonington laid a wager that 
a man could not walk backward to Westerly in a given 
time. The amount wagered was, perhaps, ten dollars. 
The party of the second part — the man who took 
the bet — selected Andrew Stanton (father of William 
C.) to make the journey, because for years he had 
worked in a rope walk and had become toughened to 
reverse pedestrianism. The course was from the liberty 
pole at the head of the breakwater to the middle of the 
bridge over the Pawcatuck river, and Horace Niles ac- 
companied the walker on horseback with a watch. It 
is perhaps superfluous to say that the well-trained rope- 



TALES AND TRADITIONS 97 

maker finished the five miles and a half within the time 
allotted him. 

Thomas Ash died in Stonington of cholera about 
1849-50, at which time there was a cholera scare 
throughout this part of the country. Mr. Samuel H. 
Chesebro, whose father opened a grocery store on Water 
street in 1837, says the people of the town were so 
fearful of the disease they would buy no vegetables, 
while the demand for soda crackers was greater than 
the supply. 

As a boy Mr. Stanton saw the first train start from 
Stonington for Providence in 1837. He climbed the 
fence at the south side of the Congregational church to 
see it go by. It was drawn by horses, the borough 
authorities being fearful lest the new fire-machines — 
locomotives, that is to say, should set the town ablaze 
with their spark-belching chimneys. To this day the 
foundations laid for the railroad's first roundhouse may 
be seen near Orchard street, outside of what was then 
the settled portion of the place. 

At a meeting of the borough freemen at the Con- 
gregational conference room, August 9, 1837, there 
was read and accepted a report of a committee ap- 
pointed some months previous (before the great fire of 
April) to ascertain the intentions of the railroad com- 
pany "as to the location of their road within the limits 
of this borough. " It was voted that the warden and bur- 
gesses be requested "to frame a Bye Law to prevent 
the passing within the limits of the Borough of Loco- 



98 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

motive Engines propell'd by Steam and to affix penal- 
ties." 

The warden and burgesses on August 21st gave no- 
tice to the railroad company through Mr. Whistler 
not to lay its rails in or across any of the streets or 
highways of the borough. 

On November 18th a meeting of the freemen of the 
borough passed a by-law forbidding any vehicle to be 
drawn in or across any highway at a rate of more than 
five miles an hour ; and a penalty of two dollars for each 
offence was fixed. 

Thus early the citizens of Stonington realized the 
annoyance and danger of the branch track that bisects 
our principal streets at grade. Yet in 1837 trains 
were infrequent of movement and insignificant in size. 

As an illustration of the possible survival of colonial 
prejudices spoken of in a previous chapter, the story 
may be told of the Stonington man who painted his 
house red. "Regular Rhode Island taste," was the 
contemptuous comment of a relative. 

A few years ago the oldest Congregational clergyman 
in Connecticut, Rev. Amos S. Chesebrough, a native 
of the borough, wrote a series of reminiscences which 
were published in the Stonington Mirror. In the course 
of these he recalls many amusing tales of his boy- 
hood days, for instance one concerning the excellent 
daughter of a pious deacon of the place: "His daughter 
was as good as her father and a story is told of one of 
the neighboring deacons who, having lost his wife, after 
a long and distressing illness, came to see Miss Fellows 
the very evening after her funeral and proposed mar- 



TALES AND TRADITIONS 99 

riage. She was of course shocked and said to him, 
'Wh}^, Deacon, is not this too sudden?' 'Oh, no,' 
he replied, 'I picked you out some time ago ;' and she 
made him a good wife and nurse in his declining years. ' ' 

The Rev. Mr. Chesebrough also tells in his 
reminiscences of an old-time training day, when the 
local military organization, the First Company, Eighth 
Connecticut Militia, paraded through the borough. 
Francis Amy was captain, Charles H. Smith lieutenant, 
Peleg Hancox ensign, Giles C. Smith sergeant, and 
Azariah Stanton second sergeant. 

Marching down Main street, the trig militiamen 
passed the house of Captain William Potter, whose 
daughter was engaged to the drummer of the company. 
' 'As they came marching past, ' ' says Mr. Chesebrough, 
'he espied his fiancee at the window, and, wishing to 
do his best and make all the music at his command, as 
a salute, he beat the drum with so much spirit that he 
pounded the drumhead in and spoiled the music for the 
day, which was not very well pleasing to the captain." 

Mr. Chesebrough says of the Rev. Ira Hart, (who 
died in 1829), "I remember his looks distinctly; rather 
stocky in build, with large, round full face and double 
chin and a dignified gait, always carrying a gold-headed 
cane. He had the reputation of being a good preacher 
and an excellent pastor of his flock, but we boys were 
afraid of him and did not like to meet him face to face. 
For one thing he was noted — his high Calvinistic the- 
ology. I remember once, as the congregation was 
coming out of the audience room of the church in the 



100 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

borough, hearing Samuel Denison say something like 
this: 'I don't believe that doctrine.' Election, perhaps 
it was. It seems strange that although the people of 
that day were strict in their views of the right training 
of children, they did not believe in child piety ; child- 
ren were to be brought up to be converted after they 
arrived at maturity. ' ' 

The old fort from which the British attack was re- 
pelled in 1814 "became a favorite place for the boys 
to gather for play. It went by the name of the Grass- 
hopper Fort, and it was a matter of general regret to 
see it levelled down so that the space occupied by it 
might be used for a shipyard. Eliakim Cannon, who 
lived in the old Oliver York place, built a number of 
vessels in that yard." 

Mr. Chesebrough says that in his boyhood a great 
gate "faced the head of Water street (at about the 
present southwest corner of Wadawanuck Park), but 
there was then no road connecting it with the road 
running north to the bridge and cove, but just south 
of the salt works (near the present site of the railroad 
station) was a crossroad so that teams moving out of 
the village by way of Front (Main) street could cross 
over to the road which leads north by the Grandison 
barn and to the Mystics. I well remember the interest 
of all when Water street was extended through the 
Robinson pasture to the Mystic road. This gate then 
opened into a large lot of unoccupied land called the 
Robinson pasture, where later stood the Wadawanuck 
Hotel and where now stand the (colored) Third Baptist 



TALES AND TRADITIONS 101 

Church and many other buildings. ' ' The pasture was 
rocky, as most Stonington pastures are, and much of 
the material for the breakwater was taken from it by 
Captain Charles E. Smith, the contractor who built the 
famous old stone pier. 

The Robinson family, for whom the pasture was 
named, have no survivors in Stonington who bear the 
family name. But the Robinson burying-ground on 
Broad street still bears its solemn witness to their half- 
forgotten connection with the borough. 

One more story, of later date, may serve to close this 
rambling chapter. Not many years ago on election 
day the writer met a well-known veteran of the Civil 
War coming from the polls. It was in the time of the 
former ballot law, when each voter had to place the 
small white ballot of his own particular party in an 
envelope and seal it while sacredly isolate within the 
voting booth. "Good afternoon. Major," I said. 
"How goes the world with you?" "Begorra, I'm in 
bad luck to-day, " was his melanchoh' response, "I live 
in the city now, you know, and every year when I come 
home to vote the Doctor gives me a little prescription 
for m' stomach's sake. And faith ! I've made a mis- 
take and voted m' prescription." 



CHAPTER XVII 

STONINGTON TO-DAY 

The township to-day stretches from the Pawcatuck 
River on the east to the Mystic River on the west — 
as varied and charming a reach of country as may be 
found in many a day's journey. 

Other towns of Connecticut are as beautiful in their 
alternations of hill and valley, but no other town in the 
state borders upon the Atlantic Ocean. The neigh- 
boring shore towns of Rhode Island front upon the 
ocean but lack the thick forests that canopy the country 
roads within a mile of Stonington by the Sea. 

The census of 1910 gave the town a population of 
9154 ; it has somewhat in excess of that to-day. The 
borough, with its immediate environs, contains 2500 
inhabitants, while Pawcatuck has 4000 and Mystic 
and Old Mystic have, within the town, 2000 or more. 

For many years after the settlement of the town in 
1649 the people were Congregationalists ; Church 
and State were almost synonymous ; but two centuries 
and a half have wrought, chiefly through immigration, 
a great religious change. The writer is indebted to 
Mr. William B. Snow of Willimantic for the results 
of a religious census of the town taken by Mr. E. N. 
Seelye and himself for the Connecticut Bible Society in 



STONINGTON TO-DAY 103 

1907. There was found within the town a population 
of 9419, (mark the excess over the Federal census of 
three years later), divided into 2290 families. The 
leading branches of the Church were represented by the 
following number of persons : Roman Catholic 3747, 
Baptist 1939, Congregational 1178, Episcopal 1126, 
Methodist 586, Christian 264, Seventh Day Baptist 
186, Lutheran 146, Hebrew 23, Presbyterian 16, Uni- 
tarian 1 1 . Even the Latter Day Saints had 7 adherents 
and the Greek Catholic Church 6. 

By nationality the division was in part : Americans, 
5568, Irish 1147, EngHsh 619, Germans 613, Portu- 
guese 425, Italians 320, Scotch 216, French Canadians 
128, Canadians 127, Austrians 42, Poles 41, Russians 
23, and scattering representations of several other 
peoples. It need hardly be said that this diversity of 
races is common throughout southern New England in 
these opening years of the twentieth century. 

Not many years ago Stonington was said to be, in 
proportion to population, the richest town in Con- 
necticut. A law was passed, however, by the provi- 
sions of which stocks, bonds and mortgages, formerly 
assessable in each town, might be taxed at a low rate 
at Hartford. This caused an immediate shrinkage in 
the "grand list" of Stonington. In recent years, 
nevertheless, the town's valuation has made a sub- 
stantial advance, the figures for 1912 being S5,929,- 
321, again of $130,384 over 1911. 

So much for bare statistics. How little they tell of 
the real development of the town, its picturesque his- 



104 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

tory, the individual character and charm of Stonington 
by the Sea ! 

The special flavor and dignity that Stonington unques- 
tionably possesses — we are speaking now of the borough 
— may be said to be the composite effect of many and 
diverse causes. 

First among these is its natural situation. The 
ocean has had much to do with making Stonington 
what it is. The going down of generations of men 
and youth to the sea in ships ; the alternate spectacle of 
blue waves and silver fog ; the smell of the salt ; the 
sound of the harbor bell on misty nights ; the boom of 
the surf, subdued by distance to a pleasant melody, 
beyond Napatree; the sunset glow that wraps the sea 
and land in Roman scarves of fascinating tints; the 
ultramarine of the wintry harbor against Wamphasset's 
shining snows ; the sentiment of breadth, the feeling of 
freedom, that come from contact and friendship with 
the Atlantic — these ai'e some of the elements of beauty 
and strength with which nature has wrought upon the 
place an inescapable spell. 

Another reason for the differentiation of Stonington 
from its neighbors may be found in the early establish- 
ment of its borough form of government. This has 
given it separate shape and direction, emphasized its 
individuality, contributed to its proper pride and com- 
munity of purpose. It is the oldest borough in the 
State, and therefore in New England. Since 1801 it 
has been a small imperium in imperio, a semi-inde- 
pendent government within the larger government of 




The Wadawanuck House 
Built 1837; a fashionable hotel for several decades; torn down in the '90s. Th 
rare photograph shows it in its later years 




HOUSE OI' CHANDLER X. WAYI.AND 
Originally the home of Charles P. \\illiams 



STONINGTON TO-DAY 105 

the town. It has been administered not in the lax 
fashion of the unincorporated village but by a board 
of warden and burgesses analogous to the characteristic 
mayor and council of a city. It has provided itself 
with many public improvements — notably street lights, 
h3^drants, and side and cross walks. Is there another 
Connecticut community of the same size, or of double 
the size, in which one may go dry-shod everywhere in 
wet weather.? A recent visitor said, "Stonington is 
not so much a village as it is a little town." The dis- 
tinction is just. 

The old whaling days brought large wealth to Ston- 
ington by the Sea. Great houses were built, preten- 
tious mansions erected by lavish owners in the midst of 
pleasant lawns and trees. A charming society grew 
up recruited from the cities and fostered by the pres- 
ence of the fashionable Wadawanuck Hotel. The 
"Day place" and other hospitable homes flung 
wide their doors to house pai'ties of clever wom- 
en and accomplished men. Some of the finest boats 
of the New York Yacht Club rendezvoused in the har- 
bor. 

It is needless to say that openhearted hospitality, 
the interchange of gentle courtesies, the assemblage of 
trained minds and keen wits, the liberal outpouring of 
the good things of the world — a society, in short, based 
on experience, culture and intelligence — exert an influ- 
ence that lasts and is easily recognizable when the era 
that produced them has become little more than a tra- 
dition. 



106 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

Among the other influences that have contributed to 
impress on Stonington a quality of its own should be 
mentioned its long career as a railroad and steamboat 
terminal. In 1837 it became the western end of the 
New York, Providence and Boston Railroad, which 
extended eastward to Providence and connected here 
with the Stonington Line of steamers for New York. 
On the evening of the day of the opening of the road, 
November tenth, 1837, the official party of inspection 
having traversed the distance to Providence and re- 
turned in safety (despite the breakdown of the train 
at East Greenwich), an elaborate celebration took place 
at the Wadawanuck Hotel, which had just been built 
for the express purpose of providing a convenient 
stopping place for travellers between New York and 
Boston. 

From that time forward with the exception of some 
three years, the Stonington Line maintained its night- 
ly service to New York, until 1904, when it was 
merged in the Norwich (now the New London) Line. 

Stonington is no longer a transportation terminal, 
except for the summer ferry to Watch Hill. Its high- 
Ways are no longer blocked by the switching trains 
that for so many years puff*ed and clanged up and 
down the grade from the steamboat dock to Main 
street. It finds it hard to realize that it is no 
more a railroad and steamboat town, but the deserted 
switching yard and the silent wharves nearby bear un- 
mistakable testimony to the fact. 

One more factor in the individualization of Stoning- 



STONINGTON TO-DAY 107 

ton by the Sea may be said to be its proximity to 
Rhode Island. It is not quite a Connecticut commu- 
nity in the accepted sense of the term. Sandy Point, 
the extreme tip of Rhode Island territor}', approaches 
within a mile of it, while with Westerly its relations 
have long been industrially and commercially intimate. 

The first President Dwight of Yale College in his 
famous book of travels bemoans the condition of relig- 
ion in Stonington, which he blames upon the 
heretic sects of its neighboring State. Be this as it 
may, there can be no doubt that its contact with lib- 
erty-loving Rhode Island — a strongly individualized 
commonwealth to this day — ^has reacted upon it and 
given it a certain variety — one may say a certain pi- 
quancy and tinge — it would not otherwise possess. 

At the present time, 1913, Stonington by the Sea, in- 
cluding the thickly-settled district just beyond the bor- 
ough boundaries, contains by estimate between seven 
and eight hundred buildings — dwelling houses, shops 
and stores. It is built on a severe rectangular pat- 
tern, with two chief streets running north and south 
for practically the entire length of the "Long Point" 
of other days. Main street, as its name indicates, was 
once the principal business thoroughfare ; now it is es- 
sentially a residential street and a majority of the stores 
are on Water street, nearer the harbor. The harbor 
is commodious and safe, having been dredged to a great 
depth and hedged in by three stone breakwaters. The 
custom house on Main street is a profitable Govern- 
ment institution, exceeding the New London custom 



108 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

house in amount of collections and requiring a far less 
expenditure in proportion to these. Established 
in 1842, it has survived the rise and fall of the whaling 
and sealing business, the transfer of the New York 
boats to another terminus and the vicissitudes of a once 
large shipbuilding industry. 

There is, to-day, an important lumber trade be- 
tween Stonington and the Canadian provinces, and the 
Stonington custom district comprises within its borders 
portions of three States, Rhode Island, Connecticut 
and New York. In other words, it includes Westerly, 
Mystic, Noank and Fisher's Island. 

Stonington Borough has two large manufacturing 
corporations, the elder of which, the Atwood Machine 
Company, is the largest maker of silk machinery in the 
world ; while the other, the American Velvet Company, 
ranks among the leaders in its line. There is also an 
important coastwise fishing business which centres at 
this port. 

As a place of residence Stonington has many attrac- 
tions. It is unusually cool in summer and mild in win- 
ter. It is but three hours and a half from New York, 
two hours and twenty minutes from Boston and an hour 
and a quarter from Providence. It is the seat of the 
new Stonington union high school, the fine resultant 
of a merging of the four scattered high schools of the 
town; an institution numbering 176 students in the 
current year, of whom 88, exactly half, are in the 
freshman class. The Stonington Free Library, estab- 
lished in 1888, occupies a fine building of its own, the 



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STONINGTON TO-DAY 109 

gift of the late Samuel D. Babcock and Erskine M. 
Phelps, on Wadawanuck Park, is endowed with a fund 
of twenty thousand dollars bequeathed it by Mr. 
Phelps, and has between six and seven thousand vol- 
umes on its shelves. 

A Travel Club, with an average attendance of fifty 
at its weekly sessions, is now in its sixth year and study- 
ing France. A Men's Club meets twice a month in 
the winter to listen to speakers, usually from out of 
town, on interesting and important subjects, and has 
one hundred and forty members on its roll. An an- 
nual lecture course is maintained at a high level of ex- 
cellence, the speakers for the present year including 
Dean Charles R. Brown and Professor William Lyon 
Phelps of Yale. 

Under the important new conditions wrought by the 
twentieth century in American life, the village and 
small town, like everything else, have changed. The 
oldtime isolation of Stonington, as of many other 
communities, has been substantially done awa}- with. 

We are now in close contact with the city, share in 
its advantages and measurably mould our thought in 
accordance with it. Our favorite New York morning 
paper lies beside our plate at the breakfast table; the 
telephone puts us with marvellous promptness in touch 
with many a distant friend; the parcel post has en- 
larged our shopping district a hundredfold ; the trolley 
has bound us with its shining steel and incomprehensible 
current to all our neighboring towns — has produced in 
southeastern Connecticut and southwestern Rhode 



110 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

Island what is practically a consolidated community, 
so that we are, in the phrase of the Apostle, the inhab- 
itants of no mean city. Old divisions, old prejudices, 
are minimized by reason of our new facilities for trans- 
portation and communication. We think across larger 
radii — the innumerable little circles of community in- 
terests everywhere in America are expanding and over- 
lapping. The process is one of the most fascinating 
and significant of modern social phenomena in the 
United States. 

For reasons like these life in the country and the 
smaller towns has assumed new attractiveness to many 
city people. 

The drift to the centres of population has met 
a reverse tide that is setting back to the open 
fields, the village squares, the old New England streets 
with their white Colonial houses bowered in maples, 
elms and lilacs. If we lack the dramatic and musical 
attractions of the great town, its restless social quest 
and adventure, we have pure air and unimpeded sun- 
shine, the brisk friendliness of the ocean winds and the 
faithful companionship of the hills. We know the 
year in all its moods and whimsies ; the Procession 
of the Months becomes to us a colorful and charming 
pageant, and in the rival show of the successive seasons 
Winter reveals herself the subtlest artist of them all. 

To those, however, who may be interested in Ston- 
ington for what it has to offer in the summer months 
the assurance can be given of an invigorating at- 
mosphere throughout the heated term, of days tempered 



STONINGTON TO-DAY 111 

by the wind from the sea and nights of refreshing 
coolness and silence. A generation ago Stonington 
was a famous summer resort; the Wadawanuck drew 
many guests from distant States long before Watch 
Hill had loomed upon the social horizon. In recent 
years there has been a marked tendency toward the 
permanent acquisition of summer homes in the borough 
and its vicinity by people from the cities. In some 
instances elaborate new houses have been built ; in 
others old houses have been remodelled and modernized. 
Thus, to name some of them at random, we have Stone- 
ridge, Brookdale, Farmholme, Shawandasee, The Pop- 
lars, The Hill, The Homestead, Rocky Ledge, Bythe- 
sea. Shore Meadows, Covelawn and Grey Knoll. We 
have also the "Day place," with its ninety acres of 
surrounding meadows and wooded hills, converted into 
the Stonington Manor Inn, a thoroughly inviting hotel, 
mainly for motorists but open to us all. As in the 
"sixties" the Wadawanuck sometimes registered a 
hundred new guests in a day, so the Inn in its initial 
summer of 1912 became the objective point for scores 
of automobile parties on many a pleasant afternoon. 

As I write these closing words of this little volume, 
it is eleven o'clock of a January night and the wind is 
blowing a hurricane outside. There has not been such 
a storm in years along the New England coast — and 
only yesterday we were basking in the bright sunshine 
of an exceptionally genial winter. The barometer 
has fallen below 29 and the southwest tempest is howl- 
ing like a hungry wolf at the corner of the house. Yet 



112 STONINGTON BY THE SEA 

this grim weather has a charm of its own in Stonington 
by the Sea. It is full of mystery and the suggestion 
of power, and one feels close to elemental nature as the 
gale sweeps by, singing like a cataract in the tops of 
the trees. It is an invisible spirit pla3'ing upon a vis- 
ible world, the symbol of the Unseen and the Eternal. 
And here by my shaded lamp I listen to its melody 
and fury, and see in my mind's eye the flooded marshes 
beyond the town, the rocky beaches where the great 
waves roll in, and the turbulent open ocean from Wic- 
opeset to Napatree unsheltered by any land this side 
of Spain. 

A wild night it is, but with something in it kindred 
to the restlessness of the human heart and will. And, 
listening to the wind as it surges and breaks, roars and 
whispers and roars again, who could fail to be 
touched anew with the beauty and dignity of the varied 
year in Stonington by the Sea ! 




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